Chapter 29
Blowfly Logic
If you ever need a bunch of dead blowflies, the best place to find them is along window ledges, especially in summer. Nowhere else come close as a place for blowflies to congregate and die.
They die there for several reasons.
- Persistence nowhere on earth will you find greater persistence than a blowfly trying to get through a closed window. It will batter itself senseless trying to break through, hour after hour. It never gives up. Sure, it may fly off in frustration. But it will either return, or it will try the same persistence at another, equally impenetrable window. It will die trying.
- Focus nothing is more focused on its immediate task than a blowfly trying to get through a closed window. It maintains a single-minded narrowness and intensity of focus that is truly Herculean. But it still dies trying.
- Determination its determination is what gives the blowfly its persistence and focus. Nothing will dissuade it from its determined course... except death. It will fly at that glass window pane over and over and over again, always with the same result failure.
We could continue listing these attributes all of which are normally lauded as vital ingredients in achieving success but I think you get the message.
The Law of Success is simple, but immutable. You can't break it. You only break yourself against it.
- "Do only the right things, for only the right reasons."
The blowfly dies because of simple logic that's fatally flawed. That same logic is used every day by countless humans with similar rates of failure. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in small business. We even have a saying that describes it:
- A Contemporary Definition of Insanity
Doing the same thing, over and over again and expecting a different result.Frighteningly familiar, isn't it?
In a nutshell, the blowfly dies because it fails to recognise and accept reality... that what it's doing isn't working. It needs to find a REAL opening to the outside world, not just the ILLUSION of one.
Remember the Principle of Keys? About the fact that those barriers are always invisible? There's a genuine clue there. (That link, like the ones below, will open in a new window for your convenience. Close the new window to return here.)
Why do we do it? Worse still, why to we insist on doing it, repeatedly?
One simple reason... emotional dependence. Fear of loss.
Have you read the chapter entitled "Why most people fail in small business"? Read it. It's exactly the same reason.
The real danger?
We convince ourselves that our emotional dependence is actually emotional INdependence! We refuse to admit that we don't know what we need to know to succeed. So we put up a false front and plough onward, stiff upper lip, thrusting jaw and all.
What can we do about it?
It ain't exactly rocket science. If at first you don't succeed, DON'T just "try, try and try again" because you know of no other way or refuse to admit defeat.
"Blowfly logic" is what leaves so many small business owners as empty, lifeless husks strewn along the window sill of life. Success beckons them tantalisingly, but they're so determined, focused and persistent that they fail to recognise or acknowledge the invisible barrier holding them back. Add to this disastrous mix the emotional dependence that prevents them from acknowledging their pointless, frenzied busy-ness and you have a guaranteed outcome.
Failure.
Monitor and evaluate your results or lack of them continuously. Change tack if it's not working. Look long and hard at the reality involved. Is it a genuine opportunity? Or is it just an illusion?
What invisible barriers are keeping you from succeeding?
Find the REAL opening.
And learn from the experiences of big business and bureaucracy. Here's a classic example of how they refuse to face reality in situations like this. (It's scary!)
Wisdom versus Folly
The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed on from one generation to the next, says that when you discover you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount.
However, in modern government and BIG business, because of the myriad political factions, lobby groups and arse-protectors to be taken into consideration, other strategies often have to be tried with dead horses, especially in the public service, including the following:
- Buying a stronger whip.
- Changing riders.
- Threatening the horse with termination.
- Appointing a committee to study the horse.
- Arranging to visit other sites to see how they ride dead horses.
- Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included.
- Appointing an intervention team to reanimate the dead horse.
- Creating a training session to increase the rider's load share.
- Reclassifying the dead horse as living-impaired.
- Change the form so that it reads: "This horse is not dead."
- Hire outside contractors to ride the dead horse.
- Harness several dead horses together for increased speed.
- Donate the dead horse to a recognized charity, thereby deducting its full original cost.
- Providing additional funding to increase the horse's performance.
- Do a time management study to see if lighter riders would improve productivity.
- Purchase an after-market product to make dead horses run faster.
- Declare that a dead horse has lower overheads and therefore performs better.
- Form a quality focus group to find profitable uses for dead horses.
- Rewrite the expected performance requirements for horses.
- Promote the dead horse to a supervisory position.
Realised that you're riding a dead horse?
Read the Six Inch Hat Pin Perspective and the Gordian Knot Perspective to help you deal with it.
Whatever you do, though, don't fall for "Blowfly Logic", no matter how seductive its appeal.
Taken from
“Don’t Go Into Small Business
Until You Read This Book!”
by John Counsel
Small Business Books 1996
© 1996, 1997 by John Counsel
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