Feel like you just can't win? Then stop playing that (losing) game.

Competition is a curious thing to me. Hey, I get that brands and companies need to compete and I well understand there's a leader, a (sometimes) strong second and then "the rest." I also get "You don't win silver, you just lose gold."

I'm all for brands and careers getting ahead, I just wonder to what degree competition is serving them as it seems so many times it's no longer about the passion surrounding their product, just about how the other ones are performing in relation to it.

I always find it most easy to figure out just how competitive people are not in business, but in board games. And I will be honest enough to say that, yes, I've stopped a relationship early on because the otherwise great person became so fiercely (ridiculously) competitive during one of those (silly!) trivial pursuit games --at a social gathering--that I was stunned. And, as I told him, "Congrats, our team won the game, too bad you lost the girl."

See, the problem with too strong a focus on competition is that many times we become so centered on winning that we wind up losing out on what's important. How many marriages tank on the race up the corporate ladder? How many brands lose what was once good and different because they continued to focus on outdoing the competition and became diluted...instead of focusing on providing customers a high-impact product, service or experience?

(Btw, the answers to those two questions are "lots" and "lots".)

For example, if I were focused on, say, winning rankings, I fear I would lose out on the advancing relationships I've made. I'd be so darn focused on link love that I would miss out on the real stuff (focusing on building relationships, not rankings is advice I give a lot). While rankings come and go, as I say in my article over at TalentZoo, relationships--if you treat them with care--tend to stick. Endurance (and value) is my game of choice any day.

And, for me, if I were focused on how to be better than the next blog, I would be less focused on how I can get my message out there (which is one of my goals), and I'd be much less focused on creating clever programs and pieces (which is one of my passions).

Another example is how I treat most of my work: instead of always trying to compete with existing brands and categories, I posit creating entirely new ones--and always focusing on the customer far, far more than the competition. Odd that most companies allot budget to competitive research (which they should) but next to nothing on Customer Advisory Boards...or just plain listening to those very customers (which they must).

See, many times customers don't want 'better' than the existing, they want altogether 'different'. Where competing so many times results in me-too products, creating results in memorable ones that win hearts, minds and markets. That's the (winning) game I choose to play.

Comments

[gianandrea facchini]

Too much competition is an remarkable waste of resources.
As the old japanese martial art says: defeat your enemy using his force against him.

[Nedra Weinreich]

Your post is uncannily similar in theme to Sam Davidson's current post. Thought I'd connect you guys up with each other:

http://samdavidson.blogspot.com/2008/02/lances-and-tigers-and-obamas-oh-my.html

[Sam Davidson]

Great thoughts here, CK. I couldn't agree more that "instead of always trying to compete with existing brands and categories, I posit creating entirely new ones." Well said.

If you create a market, you open up a whole new world of possibilities (and therefore revenue, customers, etc.). And when you're the first, you'll (hopefully) also be the best.

Changing the game is key...

[Lewis Green]

CK,

I posted about competition earlier this week. In reply to a comment from Gianandrea, I wrote this:

It (competition) isn’t about defeating the other guy; it is about being the best we can be. When I compete, which is often, I honor my competition because they make me better and smarter. Winning is not about someone else losing; it is about us being the best we can be, and I believe competition is an incentive to achieve that goal.

[GENE DEWITT]

I always liked to tell my folks that when we served our clients we needed to act at though we were playing the Super Bowl every day; e.i., do the very best we could. I guess that's competing but to me it's just looking inside yourself to find and act out the best.