Return of the Ninja

Gary Brooks Faulkner is an interesting fellow. An unemployed construction worker from Los Angeles with a single minded mission – to track down and kill Osama Bin Laden.
We’re not quite sure why this man dubbed ‘The American Ninja’ feels he can succeed where the might of the US and coalition forces have failed but he seems determined on his course.
The graying, long haired and bearded Ninja arrived back from Pakistan declaring that he still intends to “take care of business”. He was arrested in the mountains of the Chitral district, north of Peshawar city 10 days ago and found to be carrying a pistol, dagger, sword, night-vision equipment and Christian literature.
Mr Brooks Faulkner’s quest had taken him to the border with Afghanistan’s Nuristan province, a known Taliban stronghold where his prey is thought to be hiding so he had clearly done some research.
This solo mission is so far removed from the political shenanigans at the other end of the spectrum with the sacking of General Stanley McChrystal, that it has a purity of focus which is strangely and yet compellingly refreshing. Mr Brooks Faulkner in his own mind is seeing the issue clearly and has decided on a simple solution – no over-engineering involved.
We should be clear that we are not endorsing this erstwhile hirsute Ninja’s actions but there is a lesson here for business in that sometimes the solutions can be quite simple and making a full scale project or major exercise might often be a little over the top. The cliché that “some of the best solutions are the simplest ones’’ is a truism and so look for the simple approach to a problem first.
Clearly in the uncertain and volatile business world we have a myriad of complexities but nevertheless some root cause analysis and effective dissection of the problem can reveal a simple, ‘route one’ solution and if that’s the case then grasp it, execute it (no pun intended) and move on. We see too many businesses looking for elegant solutions, throwing enormous resources and money at problems when sometimes a bit of clarity of focus will achieve quicker results.
We have to assume that Mr Brooks Faulkner is now on a no fly list but here at Zeitgeist we won’t be surprised if this is not the last time the ‘American Ninja’ grabs the headlines…