{"id":3282,"date":"2013-10-12T08:54:30","date_gmt":"2013-10-12T08:54:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saasoft.com\/blog\/?p=3282"},"modified":"2013-10-12T08:54:30","modified_gmt":"2013-10-12T08:54:30","slug":"save-the-lions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/?p=3282","title":{"rendered":"A Treaty with the Lions"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week I heard an inspiring story of applied Improvement Science that has delivered a win-win-win result. Not in a hospital. Not in a factory. In the red-in-tooth-and-claw reality of rural Kenya.<\/p>\n

Africa has vast herds of four-hoofed herbivors called zebra and wildebeast who are accompanied by clever and powerful carnivors – called lions. The sun and rain make the grass grow; the herbivors eat the grass and the carnivors eat the herbivors. It is the way of Nature – and has been so for millions of years.<\/p>\n

Enter Man a few thousand years ago with his domesticated cattle and the scene is set for conflict.\u00a0 Domestic cattle are easy pickings for a hungry lion. Why spend a lot of energy chasing a lively zebra or wildebeast and run the risk of injury that would spell death-by-starvation? Lions are strong and smart but they do not have a social security system to look after the injured and sick. So why not go for the easier option?<\/p>\n

\"Maasai_Warriors\"<\/a>So Man protects his valuable cattle from hungry lions. And Man is inventive.\u00a0 The cattle need to eat and sleep like the rest of us – so during the day the cattle are guarded by brave Maasai warriors armed with spears; and at night the cattle are herded into acacia thorn-ringed kraals and watched over by the boys of the tribe.<\/p>\n

The lions come at night. Their sense of smell and sight is much better developed than Man’s.<\/p>\n

The boys job is to deter the lions from killing the cattle.<\/p>\n

And this conflict has been going on for thousands of years.<\/p>\n

So when a hungry lion kills a poorly guarded cow or bull – then Man will get revenge and kill the lion.\u00a0 Everyone loses.<\/p>\n

But the application of Improvement Science is changing that ancient conflict.\u00a0 And it was not done by a scientist or an animal welfare evangelist or a trained Improvementologist. It was done by young Maasai boy called Richard Turere.<\/p>\n

He describes the why, the what and the how\u00a0 … HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Richard_Turere\"<\/a>So what was his breakthrough?<\/p>\n

It was noticing that walking about with a torch\u00a0 was a more effective lion deterrent than a fire or a scarecrow.<\/p>\n

That was the chance discovery.\u00a0 Chance favours the prepared mind<\/em>.<\/p>\n

So how do we create a prepared mind<\/strong> that is receptive to the hints that chance throws at us?<\/p>\n

That is one purpose of learning Improvement Science.<\/p>\n

What came after the discovery was not luck … it was design<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Richard used what was to hand to design a solution that achieved the required purpose – an effective<\/strong> lion deterrent – in a way that was also an efficient<\/strong> use of his lifetime.<\/p>\n

He had bigger dreams than just protecting his tribe’s cattle. His dream was to fly in one of those silver things that he saw passing high over the savannah every day.<\/p>\n

And sitting up every night waving a torch to deter hungry lions from eating his father’s cattle was not going to deliver that dream.<\/p>\n

So he had to nail that Niggle before he could achieve his Nice If.<\/p>\n

Like many budding inventors and engineers Richard is curious about how things work – and he learned a lot about electronics by dismantling his mother’s radio! It got him into a lot of trouble – but the knowledge and understanding that he gained was put to good use when he designed his “lion lights”.<\/p>\n

This true story captures the essence of Improvement Science better than any blog, talk, lecture, course or book could.<\/p>\n

That is why it was shared by those who learned of his improvement; then to TED; then to the World; then passed to me and I am passing it on too.\u00a0 It is an inspiring story. It says that anyone<\/strong> can do this sort of thing if they choose to.<\/p>\n

And it shows how Improvement Science spreads.\u00a0 Through the grapevine.\u00a0 And understanding how that works is part of the Science.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week I heard an inspiring story of applied Improvement Science that has delivered a win-win-win result. Not in a hospital. Not in a factory. In the red-in-tooth-and-claw reality of rural Kenya. Africa has vast herds of four-hoofed herbivors called zebra and wildebeast who are accompanied by clever and powerful carnivors – called lions. The … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “A Treaty with the Lions”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,35,41,44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-improvementology","category-reflections","category-stories","category-three-wins-r"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3282\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}