Table of Contents

• Operation Camilla - a lesson about tactical succes …

• The Subconscious Favours the Status Quo

• Self image & Emotional Needs

Operation Camilla - a lesson about tactical success & strategic failure in persuasion

In August 1940 the Italians invaded British Somaliland from Italian East Africa.

The British wanted British Somaliland back.

The Italians had large garrisons in British Somaliland and Eritrea (inside Italian East Africa).

The British could either invade British Somaliland from the north or they could attack Eritrea (in Italian East Africa) from the north west.

The British decided to attack Eritrea from the north west.

Wanting to face as few troops as possible the British devised operation Camilla. A plan to make the Italians think that they would be attacking (formerly) British Somaliland from the north. The idea being that to reinforce British Somaliland the Italians would move troops from Eritrea and thus increase the odds of success and reduce the casualties in the real operation.

The British carried out air and sea attacks on key targets to make it look like they were 'softening up' the Italians for a landing in British Somaliland. They created multiple fake Headquarters, staffed with real people and started sending a huge number of telegrams and generating radio traffic between Aden and India and the Sudan. False information was reported to foreign agents. Maps, pamphlets and training information was produced en masse and distributed to British troops about the geography, culture and languages in British Somaliland. They played games in the desert where they would put out fake equipment for German aircraft to see. They went all out with their great deception.

And it worked! The Italians were convinced that the British would attack British Somaliland.

And then it failed. The British wanted the Italians to think that they were going to attack British Somaliand. Which the Italians did. The British presumed that the Italians would reinforce British Somaliland, this making the British invasion of Eritrea easy. Instead, the Italians, believing that the British were about to attack British Somaliland preemptively retreated and left it virtually undefended while pulling their troops back to Eritrea for ‘safety’. Where the British would invade and now face twice the number of Italians because of their ‘successfully’ deceiving the Italians.

When we communicate:

1) The person may understand what we are saying and act as anticipated

2) The person may mis-understand what we are saying and thus we can’t anticipate their actions or

3) The person may understand what we are saying and react differently than we originally anticipated

The Subconscious Favours the Status Quo

There are two things you should always remember when trying to convince anyone of anything.

1 - The primary goals of the human brain, and by extenstion the subconscious, are survival and procreation. And

2 - The human brain is lazy. And when it’s survival isn’t challenged or its need to procreate isn’t stimulated the subconscious will default to the lowest, most energy efficient options.

What this means is that unless given a reason the subconscious always favours the status quo. It’s an example of the survivor bias fallacy at a fundamental psychological level. The status quo must work because we are alive. Therefore whatever we did previously was, by definition, successful!

Self image & Emotional Needs

We all have 2 self images. When working with the unconscious we will usually treat it as a single entity (unless we are specifically trying to induce a behaviour we want that one of the self images favours and the other doesn’t).

Self image number 1 - We all have an internal image of the person we think we are.

Self image number 2 - We all have an internal image of the person we thing we should or want to be.

After decisions made by the mind that pertain to our survival the next most powerful motivator of change comes from appealing the emotional needs of either of these self images. It is the ultimate decision maker for nearl things. When we suggest a behaviour to a person that aligns with their self image they do it joyously and enthusiastically. When we suggest a behaviour that is contrary to their self image they will react defensively and reject your ideas.

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