Realizing Harmony

This article by Malcolm Gladwell was pointed out to me today with the note, Read this, it’s worth your time.”

It ties together several stories, pointing out a common factor: the amazing results that are possible for underdogs when they break the unspoken rules… following only the declared rules.

The stories include

• David & Goliath – from the account in the Bible.
• Lawrence of Arabia – and his battles in the 1910s against the Ottoman Empire.
• A war game contest – called the Traveller Trillion Credit Squadron tournament – where contestants (most of whom had a long-standing interest in war games) were given several volumes of rules well beforehand, and asked to design their own fleet of warships with a mythical budget of a trillion dollars. The fleets then squared off against one another in the course of a weekend.  (The winning fleet was designed by a computer – with no experience whatsoever in war games, war strategy, tactics, etc.  It just had been programmed with all the rules, to use as a guideline for developing the optimal fleet and optimal strategy.)
• A local basketball team from the Silicon Valley area made up of 12 year old girls – all but two of which had little to no experience, skill, or natural talent for playing traditional basketball.

In each case the underdog came out, if not on top, then at least FAR better off than conventional wisdom would predict.

What did each do?

David surprised Goliath by running at him, instead of patiently marching out to the slaughter.  It was a surprise attack.  Goliath never figured out what was happening.

Lawrence surprised his foes too.  Rather than directly attacking Medina, he attacked them all along their poorly-guarded supply route.  Rather than attacking Aqaba from the sea, he again used the strength of his troops – mobility and the ability to travel long distances in the deserts – by attacking from the desert.

The well-versed strategists in the war games were surprised by the plan concocted by the computer – to create a HUGE floatilla of small but well-armed boats, each of which was considered expendable.  (One strategy, not normally “approved” is to sacrifice one’s own resources for the ultimate goal.)

The inexperienced and unskilled basketball team had a phenomenal season because they incorporated strategies that played upon strengths they were able to develop – endurance – and weaknesses caused by assumptions of regular players.  (That “fair play” means allowing the opposing team to normally get the ball inbounds and down the court with little, to no resistance.)  What’d they do?  They trained for conditioning, and then played a maniacal full-court press buzzer to buzzer.  (They even had one game where only 4 of their girls showed up and played anyway.  Sure, it was one of their few losses… but far from getting slaughtered, they lost by only 3 points!)

How’s that apply in my life?

Not completely sure.  I think it’s something I’ll need to work out.  After all, in each case, the underdogs took at least a little, if not quite a bit of time to assess their situation, their strangths, their weaknesses, and what they were really trying to accomplish.

One thing is clear though…

When playing as the underdog, if you skew things in your favor and, against all odds, start succeeding… then others are likely to object… perhaps quite strenuously.  But I believe that’s all part of “counting the cost.”