One of the reasons why I enjoy campaigning is the competition. I would suggest that the cornerstone of capitalism is competition. And I would also suggest that when you attempt to moderate or diminish competitive instincts you blunt many of the competencies needed for innovation and survival. I am always looking for new notions about competition from other forms of conflict.
There are many forms of competition – some are simple to understand as in a bare-knuckle barroom brawl where there are no rules, to complex litigation driven by rigid rules and a code of conduct. The reason I’m mentioning this is two colleagues have come out with some interesting notions on correct and incorrect analogies for competition.
The first is Chet Richards. Chet has a new book titled Certain to Win. Chet aggressively attacks the notion of using military analogies for business. Chet comes to his conclusions as a mathematician, retired Air Force Colonel and long time Boyd associate and offers some compelling insights on the true nature of competition within the 21st century enterprise. You can find out more about his book here:
The second is Dr. David Lai, a native Chinese, now a professor at the US Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base. David and I became acquainted over our shared interest in the game of Go and it’s application to strategy. David recently authored an article with Joel F. Cassman titled Rethinking the American Way of Football And War. In their article the authors suggest that European style soccer is a much better metaphor for war than American football. While their conclusions apply to military conflicts all of it crosses over to business. I think you’ll find their conclusions quite interesting. You can read the article here:
Rethinking the American Way of Football and War
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