Competitive advantage fades away faster than any time in recent memory. In the 1980s, if you had a performance edge over your competitors, you could reasonably expect to continue being a leader for around 10 years, on average. But now the half-life of that advantage has shrunk to just one year. That means that short-lived success is actually still very common, but sustained success becomes very hard and very rare. That means that, actually, reimagination is the new execution. In order to stay on top, or even just to tread water and stay still, you need to constantly reimagine your business.

Reimagination Is The New Execution

But reimagination is not so simple if you already have a highly successful business model. We become prisoners of the mental models that underpin our past success. In fact, Martin Reeves found in dealing with businesses that you can’t really stretch your strategy unless you stretch your mind.Now play is of course a great way of stretching your mind. Reeves is not suggesting literally that executives huddle around a conference table with a big pile of Lego bricks, for example; instead he’s created a series of imagination games to help executives to stretch their thinking.

Business Play - The Imagination Games

Let’s suppose that you’re stuck in the rut of seeing the world through the lens of your past and current success. Reeves would recommend the “Anti-Company Game,” and here’s how it works. You get a piece of paper, you create a list of everything which is essential to your strategy - everything which underpinned your past success, everything which is core and sacred - and then you flip it. You create the exact mirror-image list of assumptions, and then you make the best business case for this antiself. You’ll be surprised at the ideas that it triggers.

Game 1: The “Anti-Company Game”

You’re the CEO of a hotel chain. Inconveniently, you don’t actually own any hotels or any rooms or even operate any hotels or any rooms anywhere. Ridiculous - quite possibly - but actually, how would you know the difference between ridiculous and the merely unfamiliar, untried and uncomfortable? Actually, had the executives of hotels played the “Anti-Company Game” before 2007, they might have been able to foresee the appearance of Airbnb, the hotel-less hospitality company, and they might have been able to stave off disruption by preemptively disrupting themselves.

The “Anti-Company Game” Example

On the edge of your industries - on the edge of every industry - are a population of maverick companies that are taking a bet against the incumbents’ business model and their view of the future. Actually, they have no choice because to be a miniature version of the incumbent would not be viable. Now, it’s easy not to notice them - many of them are small companies. It's easy to deliberately overlook them with some justification. Many startups disappear fairly quickly after being founded. And it’s very, very tempting, given all of your experience in the business, to judge them.

Game 2: The “Maverick Game”

“Do these mavericks know what they’re doing? Does their business model make sense? Will they ever make any money?”But instead of judging them from the comfort and the confidence of your position, try assuming that it’s they that have the right bet on the future. Think about the consequences of that for your business model. Try making the best case for their idea.

… Or, The “Switch Game”

You are the CEO of a company that makes equipment that makes semiconductors. Naturally, you’d probably spend most of your time and attention on your main customer industry, the electronics industry. And if it so happened, that a couple of maverick bioscience companies were tinkering with your patents and your technologies, you might overlook that as a distraction, an irrelevance.

The “Maverick Game” Example

But actually, Brooks Automation, a leader in the field, decided to take a close-up look at such a group of mavericks to see whether it could learn anything. And it realized that, actually, the same techniques and technologies which can be used to handle delicate semiconductors can also be applied to other fragile and easily contaminated materials, like biological samples. And puzzling on the significance of this, they reimagined how to handle and store and transport and label and identify biological samples. In fact, they became a successful pioneer in the new industry of automated biobanking.

Now, not everything in business goes according to plan. In fact, sometimes the plans go horribly awry. But you know what? That can be a source of inspiration, too. Enter the “Pre-Mortem Game”: your role in this game is to write the obituary for your company, which is going to fail with 100% certainty in 5 years’ time. What is the cause of death? What will have been the point of failure? Why will it have failed? How will it have failed?

Game 3: The “Pre-Mortem Game”

The challenge in the “Pre-Mortem Game” is that it’s easy to be seduced into the baseline fallacy. The baseline fallacy is the idea that it’s the current business model which is the low-risk bet. And of course that tends to be true until it isn’t true, at which point it’s probably too late to do anything about it.

The Trap: The Baseline Fallacy

Your employees are an early-warning indicator. They will have intuitions if the model begins to slip, but it’s very hard for them to speak up. And it’s even taboo for them to speak up when the business model is under pressure. But when executives create playgrounds - spaces for the safe exploration of alternatives and alternative scenarios - then you get to tap into your employees’ considerable experience about the vulnerabilities and the weak spots and the blind spots of your company.

The Way Out: Your Employees

It’s probably been quite a while since we last visited the local banking branch, right? Had bricks-and-mortar banks played the “Pre-Mortem Game,” perhaps they would have heard their employees expressing some concerns about the gradually dwindling flow of customers to local branches. And perhaps they would have been slightly less taken by surprise when companies like NewBank, a digital native, seized, very rapidly indeed, on that opportunity to convince, to date, more than 40 million Latin Americans that in-person transactions in real buildings were a quaint but obsolete relic of the past.

The “Pre-Mortem Game” Example

It’s only when you bring your vulnerabilities into full view in this way that you may be motivated to reimagine your business and to do so in a robust manner. It’s why the Roman Catholic Church invented the role, the position of the Devil’s advocate in the 16th century to test the future consequences of its decisions to appoint new saints. They did that by imagining what would Satan say or propose or counterpropose, in addition to the normal procedure of thinking about the big man upstairs.

Beatification, Canonization And The Devil’s Advocate In Business

Any human being, any employee, any team and therefore any company can harness human imagination. It’s a defining trait of our species. Failures to imagine in business are really failures of leadership. Business is a serious matter, but it should not exclude play. When leaders embrace play and imagination games, they can unlock the imagination of their employees, uncover disruptive new strategies and renew their lease on the future.

An Infinite Game Shouldn’t Be Played Like A Finite One

Successful business strategy is about actively shaping the game you play, not just playing the game you find.

The essence of strategy lies in creating tomorrow’s competitive advantages faster than competitors mimic the ones you possess today.

Competitive strategy is about being different. It means deliberately choosing a different set of activities to deliver a unique mix of value.

Strategies for taking the hill won’t necessarily hold it.

Play is spontaneous and pleasurable but, more importantly, it accelerates and derisks learning. When we’re kids, it helps us to try out new behaviors, to refine those behaviors and to imagine what is not but what could be or what will be. Martin Reeves, a business strategist dealing with adults, argues that, in fact, play in business is not just possible: it’s essential and even urgent. Here’s why.

To thrive in today's competitive economy, you need to constantly reimagine your business. So what's the secret to sustained success? Strategist Martin Reeves makes a pitch for embracing play to spark innovative business ideas -- and invites you to try out a series of imagination games that he uses to get leaders to stretch their thinking and dream up new possibilities.

The Business Games: Why Play is Essential for Business

“Life is growth. You grow or you die.”

Phil believed in the power of learning. Learning can take many forms :• Reading• Traveling• StudyWhat is important is that you are constantly improving and that goes for life in general and in your profession.GROWTH, GROWTH, GROWTH !!!

Life is GROWTH

Phil pursued his calling in making athletes better by providing them with the best performance equipment they'll need.As an athlete himself he had a passion for sports which he believes was his purpose- a life of meaning and creativity.YOUR WHY WILL TRUMP ANYHOW!!

Chase Your Purpose

In an industry dominated by the likes of Adidas and Puma, Phil believed in providing high-quality for lo-cost products and he would have to import these products from Asia - a risky business plan but Phil pursued it nonetheless. It was not all smooth sailing with bankruptcy lurking in Nike's early days however he persevered.

Chase your " CRAZY IDEA"!

With failure comes WISDOMNothing can take away the invaluable lesson taught by failure. Failure is painful and pain is temporary.• choose to learn from your situation, you can take what you've learned and become better.

Fail

Phil recognizes that although hard work and focus are required to succeed one must also persevere to find opportunities for success. Keep going, keep searching and eventually, luck finds you in the most unexpected places.

Luck: an ingredient for success

Act successfully until you are successful. Success is a mindset this is why success means different things to people. Success is defined by the individual and how you define success is based on your perspective of life.Phil would often be in a room with business people much smarter and more experienced than him but he could only be in the same room with these people because he and his business projected confidence and success.

Success

• Has a mission that the public agrees with and can support.Nike's mission: “To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete* in the world. *If you have a body, you are an athlete.”Your mission projects your values and beliefs.

A brand that inspires

A inspiring story from an inspiring man and his company - Nike

'A refreshingly honest reminder of what the path to business success really looks like ... It's an amazing tale' Bill Gates 'The best book I read last year was Shoe Dog, by Nike's Phil Knight. Phil is a very wise, intelligent and competitive fellow who is also a gifted storyteller' Warren Buffett In 1962, fresh out of business school, Phil Knight borrowed $50 from his father and created a company with a simple mission: import high-quality, low-cost athletic shoes from Japan. Selling the shoes from the boot of his Plymouth, Knight grossed $8000 in his first year. Today, Nike's annual sales top $30 billion. In an age of start-ups, Nike is the ne plus ultra of all start-ups, and the swoosh has become a revolutionary, globe-spanning icon, one of the most ubiquitous and recognisable symbols in the world today. But Knight, the man behind the swoosh, has always remained a mystery. Now, for the first time, he tells his story. Candid, humble, wry and gutsy, he begins with his crossroads moment when at 24 he decided to start his own business. He details the many risks and daunting setbacks that stood between him and his dream - along with his early triumphs. Above all, he recalls how his first band of partners and employees soon became a tight-knit band of brothers. Together, harnessing the transcendent power of a shared mission, and a deep belief in the spirit of sport, they built a brand that changed everything. A memoir rich with insight, humour and hard-won wisdom, this book is also studded with lessons - about building something from scratch, overcoming adversity, and ultimately leaving your mark on the world.

Shoe Dog

Trust is the heart of the market when you cut the timely financial transactions, you cut the arteries, ending the business circulation.

If no one turned around when we entered, answered when we spoke, or minded what we did, but if every person we met 'cut us dead' and acted as if we were non-existent things, a kind of rage and impotent despair would ere long well up in us.

If in a place very few number of people have been given the potential rights, "don't limit yourself", just simply acquire the people within the rights itself.

Starter

Don't let the family mosquito enter the body (Family Business) and drip away the blood (Money and Respect), later or sooner your body will catch a disease.

Toxic Don'ts

It is easy to get rid of an outside manager, but how do you get rid of a family member? You must either do what is right for the business or the family. Either way you will end up with an angry family or weak company.

<ol><li>Don't blindfoldly delegate the people, you should have the keenness to consistently monitor them.</li><li>Millions of eye-catching theories pop up in the market every year, not every theory bears a token of success, we call it fad nowadays. We should be experimental enough to know which one is the pure gemstone.</li><li>The world's very oldest knowledge carrying businesses have had some 50% famed ventures and the rest of them failed due to missed opportunities.</li></ol>

Basic Lessons

In the nineteenth century, a tiny community from the deserts of Rajasthan spread out to every corner of India. The Marwaris controlled much of the country’s inland trade by the time of the First World War. They then turned their hand to industry and, by the 1970s, owned most of India’s private industrial assets. Today, Marwari businessmen account for a quarter of the Indian names on the Forbes billionaires list.// What makes the Marwaris so successful? Is it their indomitable enterprise, or their incredible appetite for risk? In this new book, Thomas Timberg shows how the Marwaris rely on a centuries-old system for conserving and growing capital which has stood them in good stead, alongside a strong sense of business ethics which has earned them respect.// Family businesses in general and the Marwaris in particular might have a vital role to play in shaping India’s economic future.

Busy Reader Material

The Marwaris

The best leaders all had something more than skills. They had an X-factor that set them apart from everyone else: you can spot such people at any level. This is the mindset difference. It is invisible key to success: once you have it, you have an advantage that lasts a lifetime and works for you time and again.

The Mindset Of Success

Mindset is not about changing who you are. It is about becoming the best of who you are. The right mindset lets you focus on your natural strengths. It is not a simply new set of skills. It is a new way of thinking.

The Mindset Revolution

Focus on one or two must-win battles where you will secure your legacy and create a better future for yourself.

High Aspirations 

Be brave enough to trust your team to deliver. Learn to step back and stop interfering; this is remarkably hard to do for leaders who spent their entire careers believing that success comes from delivery. At this level, success comes from getting others to deliver.

Courage

You need to be persistent and focused, but you are past the need for deep resilience. Complaining about your intense travel schedule does not count if you travel first class around the world: you are showing off.

Resilience

You are now a role model, and you are under constant observation. Act the way you would want to be remembered, because people will remember you more for how you are and less for what you achieve.

Positive

Define your role, knowing that less is more. What is it that you, and only you, can do? Everything else has to be delegated. As with courage, learn to let go.

Accountable 

Very experienced leaders now report to you. They will resent being micro-managed. Instead, you have to forge a relationship which is about partnership, coaching and consulting.

Collaborative

Your role has changed again, but there is no one to tell you what your role is or how to perform it. The rules of survival and success have not changed, because there are no rules, you have to make the rules yourself. Your challange is to make the right rules.

Growth

Stay focused on your goal and do what it takes to get there. In practice, leaders below you will have to do most of the dirty work.

Ruthless

Short notes from the summary of the book that reflect the content of the subject well and explains what Jo Owen believes the mindset of success is. 

Will help you unlock your true potential and accelerate your career by acquiring the seven key mindsets that lead to leadership success.

The Mindset of Success

There is a lot in this life to be excited about. There is a lot that we think we are striving for. Often times we are searching for something "BIG" we are wanting a BIG change or a BIG growth/improvement. Yet those only come every so often.

Take Time to Celebrate the Small Wins! 

I created a Youtube training video on software I am passionate about. It got a WHOPPING 14 views 😅 Out over those 14 views (SO FAR!! I am shooting for the MOON DARN IT 🌜) I got an email. Someone wanting to tell me thank you and reaching out for a template I shared on the video.  🎉

Just Being Honest

It feels a little silly, but at the same time. Even if I got 1,000 views (which would also be a Win!) The fact that a single human benefited, reached out, and wanted to use the template/design that I worked on? Now that is a win!

It's a Win!

Celebrate your small Wins!  Its the small wins that bring us the big wins! It will build appreciation and a sense of accomplishment in your own goals!

So Remember

Take the time in your day and what you are building, to celebrate the little wins! Wishing everyone the best out there!

There is a lot in this life to be excited about. There is a lot that we think we are striving for. Often times we are searching for something "BIG" we are wanting a BIG change or a BIG growth/improvement. Yet those only come every so often. So spend the time rather than waiting, looking for the small wins to be grateful for. Look for the little things that have grown. For me recently it was a VERY small win 🤣 and of course, each win will look different for everyone that is involved. I created a

The Business Games: Why Play is Essential for Business

Shoe Dog

The Marwaris

The Mindset of Success

Celebrate the Small Wins

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