stop looking to the competition. Value-innovate and let the competition worry about you.

Focus on innovating at value, not positioning against competitors

Strategy is heavily influenced by its roots in military strategy. The very language of strategy is deeply imbued with military references— chief executive “officers” in “headquarters,” “troops” on the “front lines.” Described this way, strategy is all about red ocean competition. It is about confronting an opponent and driving him off a battlefield of limited territory.

Today, one hardly talks about strategy without using the language of competition.

Never use the competition as a benchmark

strategy perforce becomes a zero-sum game where one company’s gain is another company’s loss

to win in the future, companies must stop competing with each other. The only way to beat the competition is to stop trying to beat the competition.

strategy is about confronting an opponent and fighting over a given piece of land that is both limited and constant.

The more that companies share this conventional wisdom about how they compete, the greater the competitive convergence among them.