Competition is a constant.

My son competes in basketball. His team has many challenges. Perhaps the biggest challenge is that they are a new team (formed this year) competing against established teams that have played together for multiple seasons. Moreover, the other teams have “serious” coaches that teach sophisticated offenses and defenses. Those teams execute plays with coordination, skill and timing that give them decided advantages against less prepared teams.

Here is an interesting point. My son’s team has talented athletes. In fact, they have enough talent to win any game (even against the best teams in the league). Talent alone, however, is not enough. They need to have better offensive and defensive plays. They need to make better adjustments during the game to react to what the other team is doing. They need to learn more from their opponents to make their team better.

Is business any different?

Companies are constantly competing in markets everywhere. Some of the companies are established players with all of the advantages derived from that position. Others are “new to the game.” They have fewer obvious advantages and have to capitalize on disruptive strategies to change the game. No matter their current positions, both camps have to react to change to stay (or get) ahead.

Just as in sports, sometimes the difference in outcomes is not solely due to talent.

There are smart people everywhere. Most of my career has been in the corporate world surrounded by intelligent and resourceful people that created new high technology businesses. Lately, I have seen more of the drive and ingenuity of the small business owner. Are there many things more difficult (or more fun) than starting something from scratch? Being talented is important but it is not enough when it is not applied intelligently.

Competitive intelligence is a way to compete better

During halftime at my son’s basketball games, he will stop by the stands to talk with me. We talk about how the first half went and what he needs to concentrate on during the second half. Usually, I have an idea for him to try. For instance, in one game, the defense was not covering the jump shots from the free throw line. Maybe he could fake a pass to his right, step forward to the free throw line and have an open shot. Indeed, that is what he did and he was open for a clear shot (missed it, though – more practice between games needed).

Businesses need “open shots” too.

It is not easy to find such conditions because the competitors are playing active defense to prevent openings. Here are three things to remember.

1. Systems are competing. When considering competition and what to do it, recognize that two (or more) systems are competing. Focusing on a constituent part may be easier but may also lead to less viable solutions. Analyze multiple “moving parts” of the systems. For example, consider not only the competing products but also the engines (i.e., intellectual property, R&D investment, alliances) behind the product development.
2. Every competitor has a weakness. We hold up certain companies as the epitome of success. Ten years ago, the list might have been Sun, Microsoft and Yahoo. Today’s roster of high technology companies would include Google, Apple and Amazon. It will not always be that way. As the environment changes, many successful companies cannot sustain their advantages. New companies recognize weaknesses and capitalize better than the established companies do. The only question is “when?”
3. Every change is opportunity. And, of course, every change is a threat. Forward-looking companies are constantly seeking to understand change so that they can shape or adapt their strategies accordingly. Change is particularly threatening to “static” companies. These companies decide a strategy and completely focus on execution. No attention is given to competitors, market changes or anything else that might challenge their initial assumptions. Conversely, alert companies are constantly adjusting. Their great advantage is seeing and reacting first.

My son’s team is getting better. All of the parents can see the players’ efforts. We know that they are close to breaking through against the established teams. They are actively learning while improving their individual skills. Their teamwork is getting better at overcoming their well-prepared opponents. Perhaps this weekend will see our first win. After that, the sky is the limit!

How about you? Do you have competitive intelligence challenges in 2010? Are there things that you should do to get better against your competition?

I have created a short survey about competitive intelligence challenges to get a sense of what others are facing. Click here to take the survey. It will require less than five minutes of your time. Thanks!

Many people that perform strategy or competitive intelligence jobs are feeling distress these days. It is a difficult environment for those responsible for the long term or externally focused thinking in an organization. It is not an easy time and yet there are things to do to survive while preparing for the economic improvement (fingers crossed).

The most important point is to remember that this time will pass.

One advantage of growing older is having more reference points. That is, you remember other bad (and good) times and realize that none went on forever. “Stagflation” from the late 1970’s went away. Disco (mercifully) ended. There was a recovery from the dot net implosion in 2001. We will get through the swine flu, too.

Okay, that does not mean that the time is not painful for many. So many people have lost their jobs. Others, who have managed to stay employed, may be feeling the most stress. (See the BusinessWeek article “When the Laid-Off Are Better Off”)

For the strategists and competitive intelligence professionals, there are three things to do.

1. Don’t spit into the wind. That is, acknowledge the reality that most of management is concerned with the near term and has little appetite for long-term thinking. It is fine for you to know that short-term thinking alone is not sufficient. However, it is a poor time to assert repeatedly that fact. The practical and helpful step is to shift your focuses to add near term value. Look for cost saving strategies and competitive intelligence opportunities to support sales and business development. In short, be tactical.
2. Preserve your relationships. Some corporations today appear like hospital wards full of wounded people. Employees have the haunted looks of exhausted survivors. Indeed, the emotional and spiritual strains of the past year have taken a toll on many people. Interestingly, now is a great time to build and nurture relationships. The very vulnerability that people feel often makes them more open to talking and sharing. Intentionally look for opportunities to give things to people without obligation. Later, when things are better, some of these people will reciprocate.
3. Lay the groundwork for recovery. When (not if) recovery occurs, there will be a rapid shift back to long-term strategy and competitive intelligence topics. This is already occurring for healthier or farsighted companies. When it happens for your company, the prepared people will prosper. So, even if it is only part time, spend effort monitoring the environment, studying techniques and tracking competitors. Look for others in the company that have similar dispositions and work together with them.

These prescriptions are, admittedly, simplistic. Nevertheless, wise moves today are important – not just for your personal and professional distress levels, but also for your future prospects.  It is a great time to remember the basics.

What would you advise that I have missed?

Alice was miffed. Bob was 15 minutes late to a meeting that he had asked for earlier in the day. Ostensibly they were going to discuss his upcoming meeting with his boss where Bob had to explain how to recover from various competitive attacks. Now that he had shown up, he was distracted by what appeared to be an emergency.

Alice had to admit that he seemed different from earlier that day. The tentativeness was gone and the energy that most associated with Bob was evident. She could understand why he was successful with his product line for so long. He was decisive, passionate and hard working. She waited from him to finish his call.

Bob finally hung up the phone and looked at her. “Come in, Alice,” he said.

“Sounds like you had an emergency today, Bob,” ventured Alice.

“You might say that,” replied Bob. “Do you know about the conference coming up in a couple of weeks? Well, we had some plans to make a splash there by announcing a new product. Guess who just preempted up.”

“I suppose it would be one of our competitors,” Alice answered.

“Yes, and not just any competitor. It’s those guys over at Advanced Products. They seem to delight in sticking it to us. This isn’t the first time that they have pulled a stunt like this. Seems like they are determined to keep the press focus off of us,” Bob said with a hint of anger.

“May I ask you a question?” asked Alice. Without waiting for an answer she continued. “You say that this is not the first time that Advanced Products has done this. What would you have done if you knew a month ago that this was coming? Would anything have changed in your plans?”

“That’s more than one question, Alice,” Bob said. “But, yes, we would have done something different. The only problem is that as far as I know it is impossible to tell the future. Sometimes you just have to learn to react quickly when something like this happens.”

“No doubt that responding quickly is important, Bob. You and your team are good at this,” said Alice.

Bob looked at Alice and sensed that she was making a point. “Alice, why does that observation not seem like a compliment to me?”

Alice replied, “Bob, Advanced Products has disrupted your plans for the conference and it is no accident of timing. Furthermore, with high confidence, you could have known about this 3 months ago.” She paused to let this sink in for Bob.

Alice continued, “They have done this three times in the past two years. Plus, as you know, Greg Simpson has taken over their product line and you know how aggressive he runs a business.” Greg had come from another competitor to Advanced Products and was well known throughout the industry. “There’s more. They have been ramping up their marketing communications in the past year. There also has been a noticeable increase in press contacts and a change in the tone of the content. Their executives have been regularly courting analysts more than ever. This is just the tip of the iceberg.”

“How do you know all of this?” asked Bob. “We know about Greg, of course, but no one on my team has said anything about your other points.”

“It is possible that you and your team have been focused mostly on products, Bob,” Alice said. “And emergencies.” Bob cringed at the gentle dig she delivered.

“My team looks at more things. In competitive intelligence, we try to see the whole of the competitive environment including the strategies of competitors. That’s why we might notice signals that you miss,” offered Alice.

“You’ve made a good point, Alice,” Bob conceded, “but I don’t see how you have certainty about predicting the future.”

“Certainty, no. High confidence, yes. The reason is that all of our competitors, including Advanced Products, are slaves to patterns, capabilities and people,” Alice said.

“You better explain that to me, Alice,” replied Bob.

“Okay. Every company has patterns of behavior driven by their culture and processes. Their patterns are necessary to enable a company to thrive in business. Without patterns, a company does not have a coherent, repeatable way to be successful. Does this make sense?” Alice asked.

“I think so. You are saying that patterns are a bit like habits but more powerful?” Bob said.

“Yes. If you know a competitor’s patterns then you can project their next actions better. Also, you can eliminate certain actions that are clearly incompatible with who they are. Capabilities, on the other hand, determine the range of things that they can do. For instance, specific product knowledge, market position, financial state and more are capabilities that similarly enable and limit a company. Finally, specific leaders give an organization a bias for certain types of decision making. Greg is a great example because we already know that he prefers an aggressive posture toward decisions.”

“Alright, I am catching the drift. Just for fun, play all of that out for this latest crisis. How could I have known three months ago what Greg and Advanced Product were up to?” Bob asked.

Alice began, “Let’s establish the context first. Advanced Products is behind us in the market but they are gaining fast. They are attacking us at the low end of the market that usually does not get the attention of our existing customers. Moreover, other competitors are following a similar strategy and our overall market share is in trouble.”

“Don’t remind me,” said Bob as he remembered that he was due to explain all of this to his boss next week. Alice waited for a moment and then continued.

“We know from Advanced Products earnings calls with analysts, their executive presentations and their recent influx of new managers that they are determined to grow the company. We also know that coming from a small share, they are concerned about the market awareness and respectability of their company. Those things are critical for our industry. As you said yourself, they have already established a pattern of disruptive announcements. Now, why would we have guessed that another disruptive announcement would have come before the upcoming conference?” ask Alice.

“You have my full attention,” said Bob.

“Simple, because just as Advanced Products has patterns, capabilities and people, so do we. And they know it,” she said. “If my memory is right, don’t you usually introduce the latest product line addition at this conference each year? And, don’t you count on the press momentum to propel your plans for the rest of the year?”

“I suppose you are right, Alice. That’s always worked out well for us. We have been the ‘top dog’ in the market for so long we assume that we will get most of the attention,” Bob explained.

“Maybe our success has made us too predictable? Reactionary instead of proactive? Maybe the market share results are the accumulation of many such instances of not seeing early what our competitors are doing? Is that possible, Bob?” Alice asked as she looked steadily at him.

“This discussion isn’t why we were going to meet this afternoon, was it?” Bob asked.

“Actually, Bob, it was the perfect subject to illustrate how the competitive intelligence team can help you make better decisions and to eliminate unnecessary emergencies” Alice answered.

“Alice, once again, you have effectively made your point. May we try again to have the meeting that we planned? If I remember, you were going to help me settle on some key questions. Tomorrow at 8 AM?” Bob asked.

“8 AM it is,” Alice said, “Sharp, this time.” They grinned at each other.

There was much to do.

Business strategists and competitive intelligence professionals deal in ideas. At first it may seem that having a good idea is the biggest challenge. Later we come to know that affecting people successfully with those ideas is a much greater challenge. It’s wonderful when we work with people that accept our ideas readily.

Sometimes though, we run up against people that resist our ideas.

You know the type. Despite our honorable intentions, elegant solution and impressive presentation, they remain unmoved. More than that, they sometimes can get quite hostile. They seem to resist the very possibility that we have a great solution. Maybe their hostility or resistance is passive. It can take us a while to even figure out those people.

After battling the passive folks it is almost a relief to confront someone that openly and vociferously opposes us. Ah, let the battle begin, we think. My ideas versus your ideas and may the best ones (mine, of course) win! There is a big problem with this scenario. (Well, maybe there is more than one.)

It is extremely difficult to overcome someone’s resistance when we think of it as “resistance.”

People are masters are detecting our strategies and adjusting their “wall” to deflect unwelcome ideas.  You try to argue with them. They might argue back, withdraw from the discussion or retreat to fight you another day. Many people will seem to agree with you and only later will you learn that their agreement was not sincere. The one certainty is that they remain unconverted to your idea. You will not be allowed to win because it means that they will have to lose.

Try transforming your image of resistance into one of “safety.”

Jerry Weinberg of Weinberg & Weinberg gave me this lesson a few years ago. At the time my head was bruised from all of the times that I beat it against a wall. The wall, of course, was all those idea resisters. How dare they withstand me, I thought! My ideas were good ones. They only wanted to see me fail which turned my bewilderment into anger and resentment. Then Jerry gave me transforming idea that the issue was their “safety.” What I was advocating affected their safety because it threatened them with change. The change that I wanted to occur was not something that they had asked for or welcomed. Coming to grips with how to effect change is the acid test for “idea” professionals.

Helping others work through their safety issues can actually improve your idea.

So I began to rethink how I approached others. I realized that my best ideas would languish without the agreement of at least some of the people that felt unsafe. I began to ask them about the possible impacts of my ideas. Did they have any thoughts about mitigating the side effects of my proposed idea? Were there things that could be modified in my original idea that would better consider the culture of the organization? In their opinion, what was the right pace of change? Were there ways to test my idea in some incremental fashion? Amazingly, by asking these questions, my idea and its implementation always got better. Adversaries became allies and co-owners. They began to trust me more and to help rather than fight me. My blood pressure went down and my forehead healed.

It’s good to have ideas. It’s good to make beautiful presentations. It’s good to find solutions.

It’s better to work through change with people together.

The days of command and control organizations (at least in high technology) are long passed. We have a few examples where knowledge workers can do powerful things when they are operating with confidence rather than fear. Your job and mine is to make sure that while we love our ideas, we also make sure that we are helping people feel as safe as possible with what we proposed. Yes, there will be discomfort with change. But harnessing the creative, contributory energy of others is the measure of a successful idea person.

Do you agree?