Competition – a Game for Losers

about Health Tourism Snippets – see: Health Tourism Snippets | LinkedIn

the meaning of “competition”

…according to some of the more-respected “sources”

Competition:

• an activity done by a number of people or organizations, each of which is trying to do better than all of the others (Cambridge Dictionary)
• the activity or condition of striving to gain or win something by defeating or establishing superiority over others (Lexico)

Competition arises whenever at least two parties strive for a goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss [an example of which is a zero-sum game] – (Wikipedia).

my polemic against “competition”

…and my “partners in crime”

I have repeatedly railed against the practice of joining rat races.

This is because instead of the opportunity for easy and plentiful pickings, you will find yourself in an overcrowded and obnoxious environment competing head-to-head for mere survival.

And for me, “head-to-head competition”, in business, is the most wretched of activities.

This is because it is a “zero sum” game (in order for one to win someone else needs to lose).

Instead, I have been urging: “create a proprietary market” (which means create a Blue Ocean).

By the way, as one can read in my LinkedIn profile, I do not enter competitions for “awards”.

Probably, I was influenced by Peter Thiel's talk titled “Competition is for Losers”, at Stanford University’s Center for Professional Development.

Thiel’s concern (and mine) is that competition often dilutes what’s actually important and valuable.

As the reader will read, my “partners in crime” on the issue of “competition” have been:

• Simon Sinek
• Peter Thiel
• W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne (of Blue Ocean Strategy fame)

What follows is a synopsis of what each of my partners in crime have to say on the subject. That is, they speak for me.

Hopefully, those reading this snippet will also understand (and justify) my fixation with innovation and the reason I introduced Blue Ocean Strategy (which renders competition “irrelevant”) to Health Tourism.

And, maybe, at the end, the readers will stop to rethink how they, too, regard “competition”.

Simon Sinek

…British-American author of “Start With Why” and “The Infinite Game”

Simon Sinek is best known for popularizing the concept of WHY in his first TED Talk in 2009. It rose to become the third most watched on TED.com, with over 40 million views and subtitled in 47 languages.

Simon insists that we should replace competitors with (worthy) Rivals.

When you follow and react to your competition, you’re effectively a follower (as opposed to a leader).

In other words, if you’re focused on your mission and your “why”, you’re an innovator. If you’re truly innovating, you don’t have to worry about what your competitors do.

Peter Thiel

…the German-American billionaire entrepreneur and venture capitalist who co-founded PayPal, Palantir Technologies and Founders Fund

In his book “Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future”, Peter Thiel states, “competition is for losers”.

His premise is based on a foundational belief that “if you want to create and capture lasting value, look to build a monopoly”.

The shared belief ("wisdom of the crowd") is that competition encourages people to perform better. Thiel does not dispute these motivational factors, but he does express concern that competition often dilutes what’s actually important and valuable.

Because of this, he argues that no competition represents the ideal business model, and he advises founders and entrepreneurs to always aim for a monopoly and to avoid competition.

What Peter means is that if you're playing in a field with too many competitors, you're setting yourself up for failure.

In competition, somebody has to lose.

By being the first to offer something, by offering a product (or service) to a market that's never had anything like it before, you eliminate one cause of failure - being beaten by competitors.

Thiel believes that one should pick the path of least resistance, because such a path is more often innovation rather than progression.

Being the first rather than the second to provide something new.

Doing so provides leverage to form a “monopoly”, which has several benefits - the main one of which is, your product or service becomes the “default” in the market. Anything else is just a crude imitation (think Google with Bing).

And that is what Peter means by “competition is for losers”.

W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne

…originators of the Blue Ocean Strategy

The following is a compilation of insights I have gleaned from what W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne have said and written:

• Companies need to go beyond competing - To seize new profit and growth opportunities, they also need to create Blue Oceans
• Value Innovators never say: "here's what the competitors are doing - let's do this in response"
• Create Uncontested Market Space and make competition irrelevant
• Firms need to go beyond competing and the mere improvement of product or services in overcrowded industries - and instead, pursue Value Innovation to open up new Market Space - and make competition irrelevant
• The more you look to competition, the more you end up looking like the competition
• Go where the Profits are - and the Competition isn't
• Monitor competitors - but do not use them as benchmarks
• Blue Ocean Strategy doesn't aim to out-perform the competition - it aims to make competition irrelevant by reconstructing Industry Boundaries
• Companies that break away from the competition pay little heed to matching or beating rivals or carving out a favorable competitive position
• At Blue Ocean strategy's core is the notion of a shift from competing to creating new market space - and hence, making competition irrelevant
• To win in the future, companies must stop competing with each other
• Companies already understand how to compete in Red Oceans - what they need to learn is how to make competition irrelevant
• The Buyer - not the Competition should be placed at the center of Strategic Thinking
• With supply exceeding demand in more industries, competing for a share of contracting markets, while necessary, will not be sufficient to sustain High Performance
• The best way to beat the competition is to stop trying to beat the competition
• In Blue Ocean the competition is irrelevant because the rules of the game are waiting to be set
• Every Blue Ocean has considerable barriers to imitation - so you will leave your competitors decades behind you (more often than not, a Blue Ocean Strategy will go without credible challenges for many years)