By Daniel Burrus
Daniel Burrus Technology Futurist, Keynote Speaker on Business Trends, Technology and Future Trends. Author of the best-selling book, Flash Foresight.
Contrary to popular belief, competing with other companies is counterproductive. No matter what your angle for competing – whether you’re competing on price, service, quality, time, design, or anything else – the unfortunate outcome is you’re making yourself too much like everyone else. So even when you’re in the lead, someone else eventually matches you, making you compete even more. Unfortunately, the majority of companies are so focused on competing that they’re locked in a losing battle – a vicious cycle of one-upmanship.
A better idea is to seek advantage. That means redefining and reinventing your company, your products, or your services so you can jump ahead and stay ahead. It’s about moving beyond your competition by nurturing, promoting, and enhancing innovation and original thinking – both individually and within your organization. In other words, you want to become an innovator and go beyond the competers.
What’s the difference between competers and innovators? No, competers is not a misprint. It’s an original term for those who reflexively compete rather than seek to gain a strategic advantage through innovation. Here are some of the distinctions between competers and innovators:
In short, competers are usually so caught up in meeting their day-to-day challenges that they can only worry about the future, while innovators see the present only as a stepping-stone they can use to get to a bigger and better future.
Which would you rather be?
Check back on Friday for Part 2 of this post.
For more information on Daniel please visit his website at www.Burrus.com.
Jeff DeGraff is the Dean of Innovation – an author, speaker, and advisor to Fortune 500 companies and mission-driven organizations worldwide. He’s the CEO and Founder of Innovatrium, Founder of Intellectual Edge Alliance, and Clinical Professor of Management and Organizations at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. Jeff co-created the Competing Values Framework and developed the Innovation Code and Innovation Genome methodologies which provide organizations with practical tools to reconcile competing priorities and drive breakthrough performance. His mission is the democratization of innovation: making systematic innovation accessible to everyone, everywhere, every day.