Simon Sinek explains why businesses obsess over beating competitors when they should focus on improving themselves. Microsoft speakers at education summits talked about defeating Apple; Apple speakers talked about helping teachers. The company that plays to win against itself, not its rivals, builds products that last.
Chapters
So in a finite game, baseball, the other players are competitors. The goal is actually to beat them, that your score is higher, and at the end of the game, you will be declared winner, right? In business, there's not really such thing. And so to view each other's competitors is kind of silly because two companies can sell the same thing for about the same price, about the same quality, and both be wildly successful simultaneously instead of thinking of each other's competitors. Because then all you do is focus on reacting to what they do instead. Instead, you want to find the players who are as good or better than you on one or many things and have respect for them because their strengths reveal to you your weaknesses. The point is, you're not trying to beat them. You're trying to outdo yourself. I'll give you a real life example that happened to me. So I spoke at an education summit for Microsoft, and by sheer weird coincidence, a few months later, I spoke at an education summit for Apple. At the Microsoft Summit, most of the executives spent most of their presentations talking about how to beat Apple. That's actually the language they used. Whereas the Apple Summit, 100% of the executives spent 100% of their presentations talking about how to help teachers teach and how to help students learn. One was obsessed with their mission. The other was obsessed with trying to beat their competition. After my talk at Microsoft, they gave me a gift. They gave me the new Zune when it was a thing. Some people remember what that was. This is Microsoft's response to the iPod and P3 player. And Ballmer's intention was to beat Apple and make the product better. And by the way, they did a great job. They gave me the newest Zune at the time, and it was great. I was finished with my talk at Apple and I was sharing a taxi with a senior executive. And I have this character flaw where I have to stir the pot like you telling me not to menu, like, don't hit the button, like. So I'm sitting in the back of this taxi, just like, I gotta do it. And I turn to him and I say, you know, Microsoft gave me their new Zune. It is so much better than my ipod.
And he looked at me and said, I have no doubt. And the conversation was over.
Because companies playing with an infinite mindset understand that there's no such thing as a winner or a loser. There's no such thing as winning or losing. There's no such thing as beating your competition. You're either ahead or behind, and the goal is not to compete against your competitor. The goal is to compete against yourself. How do I outdo ourselves? How do we make our culture better this year than it was last year? How do we make our leaders better this year than they were last year? How do we make our marketing better this year than it was last year? Learn from your worthy rivals. Those who are better than you have their strengths revealed to you where you have to improve. It's worth noting that a year or two after this conversation, Apple introduced the ipod, which rendered both the I introduced the iPhone, which rendered both the ipod and the Zune obsolete. Because they weren't competing against to make a better ipod, they're competing against themselves.
