Duck, weave and counter
Can Enterprises learn to duck, weave and counter?
Boxing is tough and for those at the elite end of the sport, it is all about the mastery of the subtle movements that help them to outwit and outplay their opponents.
I am a boxing enthusiast and an amateur practitioner at best, however, I do own a boxing club and have the pleasure of observing individuals as they make their journey from a novice fighter to an accomplished warrior. Metaphorically speaking it’s a similar journey that a Startup takes as it moves towards an established and viable business on its way to then becoming a powerful Enterprise outfit.
This observational piece, however, will focus on the business elite, the Enterprises, and how they can keep ahead of their young upstarts, the Startups. Whilst the general view tends to be that Enterprises need to be agiler to survive in an ever-changing world, I hold a different view and that is they need to focus on their ability to duck, weave and counter.
The major difference, at the elite level of boxing, between a good and a great fighter is how effectively they make their opponent miss and/or avoid getting hit flush, as intended. Boxers are rigorously taught to duck and weave, roll their shoulders, keep their guard up and maintain a stable stance all to avoid punches as efficiently as possible.
Good fighters make subtle movements to avoid punches which allow for rapid resetting to a stable base hence opening up better options for launching counter attacks
Good fighters make subtle movements to avoid punches which allow for rapid resetting to a stable base hence opening up better options for launching counter-attacks. Needless to say, less unaccomplished fighters make large movements, take longer to recover to a stable base and hence get hit more often leading generally to a knockout under sustained attack.
As an Enterprise it is important to recognize that the larger you get the slower you become, it’s unavoidable. However, the notion that injecting new blood whilst throwing in the corporate financial muscle will somehow allow it to become agile, in my humble opinion, is a myth.
In the fight of the century, Muhammad Ali’s 1974 Rumble in the Jungle match against George Foreman was an ultimate lesson in the duck, weave, and counter. Foreman the younger and more powerful man was outwitted and outplayed by Ali who used his skill and experience to avoid getting hit whilst drawing Foreman into a false sense of control using the famous “rope-a-dope”.
In many competitive situations, rope-a-dope is used to describe strategies in which one contender lets their opponent fatigue themselves by drawing non-injuring offensive actions. This then gives the contender an advantage towards the end of the competition or before, as the opponent becomes tired, allowing the contender to execute devastating offensive maneuvers and thereby winning.
Whilst start-ups have the advantage of no history and no baggage, established businesses have the advantage of a stable base and a steady flow of income. Startups need to make large and desperate moves to gain any momentum, to disrupt and to survive which in a boxing context means they are often off-balance and open to counter attacks.
However this carelessness can pay dividends for Startups if the established players decide to react at the point where it becomes a problem to their bottom line, meaning they decide to go for the knockout punch when they are already on the ropes taking hurtful punches; in business terms this means kicking of expensive transformational initiatives with large, inefficient and expensive teams mainly to catchup.
So how can enterprises learn to duck, weave and counter, well for a start they need to set themselves up to iteratively innovate and deliver value to their customers and avoid wholesale change. They then need to understand and address their own problems first before competing.
Dealing with a problem, when it becomes a problem is a problem in itself as it leads to more problems making it difficult to root out the real cause of the problem — hope you see the problem.
Dealing with a problem, when it becomes a problem is a problem in itself as it leads to more problems making it difficult to root out the real cause of the problem — hope you see the problem. The first corrective step in learning to duck, weave, and counter is correctly setting up stable foundations for a team.
Enterprises have the luxury of time and resources which should be used to their advantage to observe and plan and execute, but they’ve gotta be in the game to have any impact.
I will share my views on this in my upcoming article, Monkeys, Rottweilers and Donkeys.
