Tag Archives: competition

What a cave diver can teach us about leapfrogging the competition

Jorge in Strategy

I was looking at some very awesome cave diving pictures last week and one in particular caught my attention not because of the picture itself but because of the story behind it:

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The diver in this photo has descended about 20 feet into the opening of Devil’s Eye Spring. Without carrying breathing gas, free divers can usually swim down only about 40 to 45 feet, but Heinerth says that a few brave souls venture further. “In Russia, I met a guy who they nicknamed ‘Aqua Man,’” she said. “In water temperature just above freezing, Aqua Man would put on a wetsuit, enter the cave, and swim a couple of hundred feet before surfacing to sip from an air pocket on the ceiling of the cave. Then he’d free dive even further in, eventually getting 300 feet into the cave with no air. He was free diving by leap-frogging from air pocket to air pocket inside the cave.” Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit

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Obviously there’s no such thing as Aqua Man but clearly this person is called such for the feat he accomplishes. Any skilled diver can stay underwater longer by swimming from air pocket to air pocket, but because of the uncertainty of the unknown (as well as the chill) nobody is likely to try it in a cave.

What separates Aqua Man from the rest is his mental preparation. How do I know this?

Because Aqua Man has the same abilities that the other divers have, mainly to be a competent swimmer and have great control of respiration.

The ability to stay underwater and dive to depths both you and I can’t go isn’t a talent. It’s preparing your body, your mind through constant practice and then being curious as to what he might find inside the cave,

What the other divers overlooked was that there might be air pockets inside the cave. They just couldn’t see beyond their own fear!

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Key takeaway: You don’t leapfrogg the competition by beating them at their own game, you beat them by doing something they can’t do. Sometimes what they ‘can’t do’ is a fear and most of the time it’s something they’re overlooking. Exploit it!

Don’t out compete your rivals, change the rules of the game

Jorge in competition, Innovation tips, Strategy

On his way to becoming the greatest military genius to set foot on Earth, Napoleon Bonaparte broke the rules on how military campaigns were waged. From a young age he was always overlooked, to get the respect of his peers he understood he had to fight differently. In doing so he went on to rewrite the rules of military history.

Just like Napoleon we too can learn to fight ‘differently’ than our opponents, because doing so is the only way you’ll ever stand out in a world full of ‘me too thinking’.

Here are a few ways that can help you to start thinking about how to change the game in your industry:

Do what others are unwilling to do. Established companies have a strong incentive to maintain the status quo, it’s to their advantage to keep doing ‘what’s working’. Don’t compete on their terms, do what they’re unwilling to do and define your own rules.
Look where your competition is not. Go out to the fringe, where’s things are changing. Stepping out of the mainstream is the only place where you’ll get unconventional insights. What’s happening in another part of the world that you could adopt and adapt in your environment?
Challenge industry orthodoxies. Time and again, the strategy innovations that radically change customer expectations, competitive rules and industry structures come from questioning beliefs that everyone else has taken for granted. What drives success in your industry? Could you imagine alternative ways of doing things?
Collaborate. Innovations that matter arise from cross-boundary perspectives.

How to create new value in the 21st century

Jorge in Strategy

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Umair Haque @ Daytona Sessions vol. 2 – Constructive Capitalism from Daytona Sessions on Vimeo.

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Looking to inject yourself with some fresh thinking?

If you’re interested in economics, competition and strategy (specifically why our economy sucks and how we got to where we are today), here’s a great speech by Umair Haque. download Big Nothing

If you haven’t been following him at his Edge Economy blog, just watch this video and you’ll understand exactly what he’s talking about in his blog.

Umair’s talk is structured around his Laws of Constructive Capitalism which I list here.

Strategy is a commodity
Competition is obsolete
There is nothing more asymmetrical than an ideal
Tomorrow is today
Connections not transactions
People, not product
Creativity, not productivity
Outcomes, not incomes
Advantage is in the DNA
The Next Revolution is institutional

A lot of the ideas (which he goes into a lot of detail specifically on how to resell SEO) he discusses on his blog are presented in this speech, so do yourself a favor and watch the video.

Life’s Decisions film