What If You Change the Rules?
It’s one of the best episodes. The British TV show Hustle is simply legendary, and the plot of the "New Recruits for the Gang" episode has been a major inspiration for this article. [spoiler alert]
A group of cunning con artists is constantly spotting new marks. Mickey Bricks Stone is the head of the crew, the mastermind. His crew is a blend of unique skills: Albert Stroller, the seasoned grifter; Ash Three-Socks Morgan, the team’s tech genius; and the newbies in the team, the Kennedy siblings, Emma and Sean.
Carlton Wood and Harry Fielding, two greedy traders with intellectual property rights, crossed their path. These men tricked a trusting man into a deal where he lost control over the cutting-edge security technology he created. Despair led the man to suicide. Mickey’s crew decided to take revenge.
The stolen invention? A theft-preventing security device for art galleries. Wood and Fielding closed a lucrative deal with an art gallery in London but lost an advertising agency due to Wood’s volatile temper. That was the opportunity for Mickey’s team. Pretending to be PR experts, they tricked Wood and Fielding into a very risky PR move: “With our technology, insurance is obsolete. The painting is theft-proof.”
Wood and Fielding agreed. The con was on.
Now, it’s easy. They just need to steal the painting, let Wood and Fielding pay the finder’s fee, and disappear with the money. Ash is the tech guy. He gets them anywhere, even into a secured gallery to steal an unstealable painting.
But not this time.
The system is really good.
They can’t steal it.
“Just get us in,” Mickey said. “I’ll handle the rest.”
Days later, in the early morning, Wood and Fielding got an unpleasant call from the gallery.
“The painting is gone!”
But how? Wasn’t it impossible to steal it?
Here’s where creativity and strategy come in. There’s a technique called "What if." You can use it for problem-solving, too. Start by defining the rules.
The rules of this con?
The security system stays, no theft insurance, and they must steal the painting to claim the reward.
Once you have the rules, you ask, “What if…?”
What if they don’t steal the painting?
The last step is “Imagine if.” Visualize a scenario where this could work.
They don’t move the painting. But they need to make it look like it was stolen. No need to have the painting in their hands, just an empty wall in the gallery.
What if we build a fake wall in front of the wall with the painting? The gallery thought it was stolen, but it never left.
Next time you face a seemingly impossible challenge with your team, try to think of the fake wall. And ask yourselves, “What if…?