Winning in Business

We all grew up with a deep sense that life is about competing and for most of us it all started during our school days. We were rewarded by the system and our parents alike for academic, sport and or cultural activities where we excelled and came out on top. Now, rewarding hard work and dedication is an absolute must, it is with the “always winning” part where things come undone.

We are experiencing many business owners taking this concept into their businesses. We even had AG Lafley (and Roger L. Martin), the CEO who turned Procter and Gamble around in the early 2000s, that published a book called “Playing to Win”. The book describes the methodology used to enable the turnaround. A fantastic book and a must read for anybody who wants to know how strategy works.

The question is on what basis do businesses compete? Is it turnover, is it profit, is it the number of customers, is it market share, is it customer satisfaction, is it employee retention, is it community service, is it the number of defects, etc. And then, if you serve a specific market, does all the players in that market somehow select the same metric to measure?

Simon Sinek published a book called “The Infinite Game” in 2019. In his book he explains the difference between an infinite and a finite game. My example of a finite game, just because we are currently the world champions, is the game of rugby. You have 15 players on a side that plays for at least 80 minutes according to the rules set by World Rugby. The team that scored the most points when the end whistle is blown by the referee, wins the game. Even if it is 1 point, like the Springboks did with the quarter, semi and final games in 2023 rugby championship. The more than 500 million fans and eight million players within 132 national member federations affiliated through six regional associations agree to these rules. According to Sinek, businesses participates in an infinite game and draws parallels to marriage or friendship where there can be no winner.

We all know that for public companies the determination of the share value of a business provides a good measurement of what the market perceives how well a business is doing and many investors consider the measurements such as market capitalisation and dividend yield when investing. However, for private companies, there is no common metric to compare ourselves with our competitors in the same market. At SlightlySkew we strongly believe in internal measures, measuring both the functional and emotional components of the business. In short: “Am I better today than what I was yesterday, and what am I doing today that will make me better tomorrow than what I was today”.