The Motive To Compete

There is a right motive and a wrong motive. The right motive magnifies and compounds competitive?strength, whereas the wrong motive disperses and neutralises it. A motive to compete is the right motive, whereas the motive to profit is the wrong motive.

Today, we compete around value – customer value. That is the value our customers believe they gain in buying from us. We can seek to define that value for our customers but ultimately it is how they perceive value that will be the determining attribute.

Our customers are more informed (and ill informed) and more equipped to choose and change who they buy from today than ever before. Many diverse agents influence their preferences. Their needs are constantly evolving and impacted, again, by many diverse agents.

It Starts With The Individual (The Achiever)

Think of your favourite sports team. During their season, they go out each week and compete. They usually compete against teams that they know, on grounds which they have played before, and with team members they know well.

In some matches, they will win convincingly and, others, they will be devastated by a team everyone expected they would beat. It’s not that they don’t have the level of playing skill to win; it’s just that it didn’t all come together on the day.

So why is it that on some days they can compete well and on others it just all falls apart?

And Then Builds Into The Team (The Enabler)

Being competitive is about the ability to win and delivering on that. And not just win once or twice but to consistently win, time and time again. As the old strategy saying goes, ‘The ability of a competitor to defeat me lies in my hands, not theirs’.

Now think of someone who you consider one of the world’s greatest athletes.

What do you think has distinguished these athletes in their respective sports? You could say it’s the medals they won but I think there is more to it than just that. It has been their commitment to their sport and taking performance to another level, time and time again, over an extended number of years. They have trained so they can compete at a level that will allow them to win consistently. They have consistently strived to lift their level of performance.

And Then Expands To The Organisation (The Catalyst)

Think now of your business and the teams and the individuals who comprise them.

Every day of every week they go out and compete, against the same players, in the same field, with the same team members, and chasing the same prize. It’s not just your sales team chasing sales, it is everyone in your business contributing to their fullest that allows your business to outcompete (or not) other businesses in your chosen market.

Competitiveness is about team and individual performance, constantly striving to improve their capacity and capability to win, time and time again. And in business, winning is about delivering greater customer value than anyone else.

And Then There Is Strategy

In traditional strategic management thinking, the rationale went something like ‘focus on formulating your strategy and then implement it while aligning your organisation along the way’. It was an approach that put strategy first – and then organisational structure. Today, this thinking needs to do a 180-degree turn to focus on developing an organisation that is always evolving. It will then be capable of crafting and delivering strategies that are required to sustain and grow customer value.

Competitiveness is the ability of your business to deliver on the strategies that are necessary at that time to win. Winning is all about delivering greater value than anyone else to the community you serve. It is about adaptability and agility but, more importantly, it is about identifying decisively where that greater value lies tomorrow.

Being decisive is not catching up. Being decisive is setting the rules of the game and moving on before competitors even know the game has changed. I describe this trait as being competitively fit, and it is driven by the competitive engine that exists in every business.

But What About Motive?

A profit-first motive drives all the wrong levers in seeking to build a competitive business. It incentivises leadership in the wrong ways and fails to engage the core strength of the business. The core strength of any business is the combined talent and effort of everyone involved in your business.

To compete effectively today, to be able to continually redefine and lift the customer value you deliver, you must engage and activate that core strength to its full potential. A profit-first motive, the wrong motive, disperses and neutralises any strength that may exist.

A motive of ‘we’re here to compete’ opens the door to engage and activate, and the competitive engine provides the framework and mechanics to be able to fire up and direct that strength.

If you want to work with the best at their best, if you want everyone’s individual potential to be taken to its limits and beyond, if you want your business to be great, then make ‘we’re here to compete’ the motive for your business.

The best business strategy for any business is to pursue a motive of competitiveness as this will maximise its performance and, therefore, profit and value. The Practice Of Non-Greed In Business instills the right motive in any organisation.

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Here is a brief video clip that speaks into this theme with links to the full video and resources: