You Need To Run Faster Than Your Friend, Not The Bear

The strategy doesn't have to be fascinating

One day two friends went into the forest and suddenly saw a bear. The bear also noticed them from afar and started running towards them.

One of the friends began to tie the laces on his sneakers.  

– Do you hope to run faster than the bear? – the other friend asked him.

– No. I am going to run faster than you. 

Do you need a disruptive strategy?

I conduct several strategic workshops with different teams per month. We look for new strategic ideas, concepts, and approaches. And each team dreams about devising disruptive products, business models, or strategies.

And it happens rarely. 

The participants are often disappointed with that. But I can't entirely agree with such a viewpoint. 

Picture by Warren A Metcalf on iStock

Business magazines and entertainment

What movies do you like? I can not know that. But what I do know is what movies you dislike – boring ones. Every filmmaker knows that their main job is to entertain the audience. 

Nobody likes boring films.

And nobody likes boring books and articles, even if they are on business topics. Read any book on writing books or blogs, and you'll see that every single author underscores it many times – any article should be emotional, otherwise, it is doomed to fail.

Even the most traditional, conservative business publications try to turn their articles into evocative, colorful stories that resonate with readers.

Because business magazines, websites, blogs, and podcasts are an industry. They have to make money, so they must entertain their readers – at least to an extent.

And there are two best ways to amuse readers:

1. To scare them (for instance, to tell them that AI will take their jobs soon)

2. To tell a success story.

And the best success stories are when a business leader comes up with a new idea that "change the world."

But it doesn't mean that doing business means becoming a celebrity. 

How many business leaders' names can you recall? Ten? Fifteen?

You don't sleep on a bed invented by Steve Jobs.

You don't drink coffee grown by Travis Kalanick.

It is even unlikely that you drive a car created by Elon Musk.

You read this story on Substack. Do you remember the names of the guys who created it?

We are surrounded by things built up by people whose names we don't bother to remember. Few of them have ever seen their faces on the Forbes cover. 

They are not business celebrities. They do their work better than their competitors.

Strategy and market races

There are old markets with small chances to create a disruptive product or business model.

What game-changing product or solution could you introduce on the concrete market? How could you re-invent the bread industry? 

Customers buy products not because they are revolutionary new. It can cause initial interest, but then they get used to it. They purchase goods and services because they satisfy their needs. 

The only way to win in the market races long term is to create more value for your customers than your rivals do.

You need to run faster than your friend, not the bear.