Coloring Outside the Lines. Jeff Tobe

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       If you Can’tWin the Game…

      On Competition and Changing the Way You Look at Business

      Recently, I sat down to play a Chutes-and-Ladders-type game with my 8-year old niece. It was a lot of fun to see her little mind at work, but she had one annoying peculiarity: she was continually bending the rules, reshaping roles, changing the boundaries, reversing strategies. Everything I took for granted, she challenged. Cheating? I don’t think so.

      When we decide that we are in competition, we implicitly agree to play the game the way it has always been played, to abide by the formal and informal rules and roles, as well as the unspoken rituals. Although competing can be fun and exciting, it is not very creative and definitely limits the imagination. It is because of this experience that I have concluded that competition encourages conformity.

      Kids are always changing the rules and the way the game is played. Research shows that kids spend more time creating and re-creating a game than actually playing it. So, why not ignore the competition—and start to re-create the way the “Business Game” is played??

      When you compete head-on, you are just agreeing to play by the old rules...to conform to the way it has always been done...to stay in the lines! Innovation simply means to change the way we do things. I believe that ‘There is no such thing as a new idea—only new was of presenting old ones.’ This hits at the very core of our business persona. Once you make the decision not to “compete”, but to define your own market, you can find solace in the fact that you don’t have to “re-invent the wheel” to be successful. Approach the market with the mindset that you are simply going to find new ways to present what you already have. Maybe that means simply presenting your service, your product or yourself differently.

      When you begin to accept competition as a head-to-head battle, then there are no winners and you tend to lose any advantage you ever had in your marketplace. Look at what has happened with airline frequent-flier programs. What was once a very unique, innovative idea now has been copied so many times that no airline has the advantage СКАЧАТЬ