competition

Let's face it: Most companies in most industries have a kind of tunnel vision. They chase the same opportunities that everyone else is chasing, they miss the same opportunities that everyone else is missing. It’s the companies that see a different game that win big. The most important question for innovators today is: What do you see that the competition doesn't see?

Answering that question requires vuja dé. And vuja dé requires a radical shift in perspective—which is why outsiders often see the future first. It’s also one of the big limitations of benchmarking. The most creative CEOs I’ve met don’t aspire to learn from the “best in class” in their industry—especially when the best in class aren’t all that great. They aspire to learn from companies far outside their field as a way to shake things up and make real change.

Don't let the "enemy" rule your life. Try your damnedest to follow the exact advice of Mr McCue...: "Literally don't think about them."

Easier said than done, no doubt, but awareness is a start. That is, direct conversations away from "What is Microsoft doing?" ("What is the accountancy across the road doing?") And focus instead on, What new and cool things are we doing for our customers?

The concept of free competition enforced by law is a grotesque contradiction in terms.

The thing that keeps a business ahead of the competition is excellence in execution.

There was a proposal in California that would keep out Wal-Mart but allow Costco. You opposed it. Are you nuts?

That's true: I always oppose these kinds of things. Competition makes us better. Some of our best stores have a Sam's Club next door.

Steve Jobs is perhaps the most competitive human being I have ever met in my life, and yet I would argue one of the most artistic human beings I have ever met in my life. You can trash the movies all you want, but they do have an artistic component. And yet brutal competition knows no peers when it comes to Hollywood.

The 10 or 12 artists I have known really well all my life are at least as competitive as professional athletes. They may express it in slightly different terms, but you look at the Jackson Pollocks et al., and they are as interested in wall space in the galleries as Joe Montana is in the percentage of completed passes. So the notion that symphonic conducting, or stage play, or pure art, is not a competitive business is real bullshit.

If there wasn't any competition, I'd be very worried, because it would mean we were not doing very well.

"When one woman strikes at the heart of another she seldom misses, and the wound is invariably fatal."
Madame de Merteuil

The purpose of education is not the accumulation of information in order to compete for success.  Education is the experience of being fully present to oneself and the world; it is transformation toward wholeness.

Competing against each other leaves little space for reciprocity and the growth of social capital. Running against another in a race may benefit our speed, but jointly organising the sports day produces cooperation and trust. There are many situations where cooperation and reciprocity are more effective than competition. Civic virtues come from building on what we have in common rather than by using our differences to create in-groups, outgroups and fear driven competition