How to Create Competitive Strength
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"Build for your team a feeling of oneness, of dependence on one another, and of strength to be derived by unity." Vince Lombardi
All competition is a comparison. How do people compare us to others? What position do we hold in their minds? Why do they choose to support and reward us or ignore us and oppose us? What makes our competitive positions in their minds powerful?
Our ideas about competitive strength and power are often very wrong. We rely too heavily on numbers. The most common numeric comparisons are those of size. We think that the “largest” always wins. The biggest are more easily seen, no matter what we are comparing. We expect larger organizations to be successful. We expect the largest athletes to triumph. The largest armies to conquer. The richest to get the best. History proves this idea wrong more often than it is right.
When it comes to comparing size, how people compare us depends more upon their personal perspective than objective measures. Something close always looks bigger than something far away. This is why things near at hand often have a competitive advantage. But proximity also has its disadvantages. Those who are close to us see more of our flaws. Familiarity may not always breed contempt, but it often breeds indifference.
Some Definitions
One of the main purposes of practical strategy is to give us a new, more useful vocabulary for discussing the tasks of positioning ourselves in the minds of others. Words such as “power” and “strength” are too easily equated with size, so we must define these terms more specifically.
Competitive power is always relative and meaningful only in a specific comparison.
There is no such thing as “generic” competitive power. Though we will be discussing general principles, those general formulas can only be applied to a specific comparison: comparing specific alternatives and their “fit” or suitability for a specific opportunity. Competitive strength can take many forms, but all those forms are relative, arising from a specific comparison for making a given choice.
Competitive power requires only enough capacity to move into specific openings.
All moves require an opportunity, that is, an opening and our capacity to fill it. We require no more resources than are needed to make that move. Opportunities are specific. Too much size can be a disadvantage in filling small openings. Warren Buffet talks about how the size of Berkshire Hathaway means that he must find large opportunities. If two parties both have the capacity to fill the same opening, their excess of resources doesn’t add competitive power.
Competitive strength results from targeting an opposing weakness.
We use the term "strength" to describe the natural advantage of targeting weaknesses. Without a weakness, there can be no strength. The most basic weakness is a need that must be filled. However, we can also target the weaknesses of those to whom we are being compared. We can use what makes us strong if we position ourselves against their weaknesses.
Competitive strength in terms of size, reputation, and wealth results from competitive success, not its source.
We notice success only after the fact. Opportunities are hidden because they are openings no one has filled. Our resources come from advancing ourselves into positions that others reward. Our successful moves advance our positions. Those positions reap the rewards of their ground. Our success results can be easily seen, but they are the results of our use of competitive strength and power, never their source.
Competitive Strength
Strategic strength arises from unity and focus.
Unity creates focus. Focus creates strength. Power results from the momentum created by the surprise of unexpected strength (the topic of a future article). Unity and focus arise from one source: a clearly understood direction from a mission.
Strategic unity comes from external and internal shared missions.
Our missions or goals are the core of all our strategic positions. Those missions are powerful only to the degree that they are shared. Shared external missions unite our interests with those who support or judge us. The more others trust that we share their mission, the stronger our positions in their minds. Organizations work more effectively and efficiently when their members feel they all share in the organization’s mission.
Strategic focus arises from resources applied to a single opportunity at a single place and time.
None of us can effectively focus on many opportunities at once—the smaller our focus point in time and space, the greater the strength of our focus. Intense efforts cannot last long, so they must be kept short. Our impact is dissipated over too much space and too much. The key to maintaining our focus is identifying our limits.
Competitive strength results only from the relative superiority our unity and focus.
Competition is a comparison. Every opportunity is unique, but in all comparisons, our strength arises only from the sharpness of our focus and the degree of our unity. We can be united and focused, but we must be more united and focused than those we are being compared to. This means that we must focus on areas in which they are relatively weak. These areas must be or made to be most important to those comparing us.
Conclusions
One of the main lessons of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War is that size is not competitive power. Size and all other superlatives used to describe competitors are the results of past successes. Still, past success has little to do any immediate situation except that it demonstrates the know-how of others. In the real world, the smaller often triumphs over the larger. New often overcomes the entrenched. This meant that something deeper accounts for competitive power. Competitive strength comes from the focus and unity that arises from strongly shared missions. The more strongly we connect with the desires of others, the more likely they are to support us.
In the coming weeks, we will start discussing Surprise and Momentum and how they create competitive power in any given situation.
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