Going To War Is So 20th Century

Photo Source: Richard

Don’t kill your competition, just collaborate!

By ROSHAN THIRAN

In many ways, we are in the midst of this new world being shaped. In a discussion recently, a Malaysian CEO mentioned how difficult it was to beat online competitors. “It’s almost impossible to win. We try to kill our competition but they seem to be mushrooming everywhere!” the CEO said. What this CEO failed to realise was that the way to win in this new world has become significantly different. Instead of killing and going to war with competitors, the new world requires a new set of skills for leaders. In the past, winning in business, politics and almost anything meant defeating your competition.

When the early Europeans came to the Americas, they usually defeated all the native Red Indian tribes by killing their leader and then watching the tribe crumble. The same was true in business – Microsoft vs. Netscape, Pepsi vs Coke, CIMB vs Maybank and the list goes on and on in every single nation and industry — each working hard to outwit and “kill” the competition. But this new world calls for a different set of engagement rules to win.

In 2005, MGM, BMG and other entertainment companies sued Grokster, a small company providing peer-to-peer (P2P) services, allowing users to share music and software files over the internet. Before that, they sued and bankrupted Napster, a similar P2P provider. After defeating Grokster, they sued and defeated Kazaa, eMule and other P2P companies. They even started suing individuals who downloaded music illegally. To their dismay, even though they kept winning these legal battles, more P2P companies were set up all over the world.

Collaborations are more effective than waging war

Then emerged a winner – Apple. Instead of trying to “kill” P2P applications, Apple adopted the P2P model but legalised it. Apple struck a deal with the recording labels to allow users to download files at marginal fees via iTunes. Apple reinvented the conventional model by building a collaborative model. Back to the Red Indian example – only one Indian tribe remained undefeated for 200 years, the Apaches. How did the Apaches survive undefeated against the Spanish and other mighty armies?

Through a collaborative leadership model. Apache leaders, called Nant’ans, kept changing. Geronimo, a famous Nant’an, never commanded an army but was rather a spiritual leader. Whenever a Nant’an died, a new one emerged, not by appointment but by a collaborative process. People followed a Nant’an because they wanted to and not because they had to. This collaborative leadership model enabled the Apaches to survive. In recent times, we have seen this collaborative leadership model being deployed even by terrorist organisations like Al-Qaeda. How did Osama bin Laden, a man operating out of a cave become so powerful? Because Osama never took a traditional leadership role.

Many CEOs today lead by command and control mode. The collaborative leadership model is about engaging everyone in the leadership process. But it’s not just with leadership. Businesses are collaborating with customers on new products and innovation. YouTube and Twitter enable collaborative marketing, and new newspapers are being launched through collaborative journalism.

 
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The Huffington Post has grown to be a major online newspaper by leveraging the power of collaborative journalism. It has huge reach and unlike the New York Times, who has 1,332 newsroom employees, HuffPost only employs a total staff of 50. It has more than 1800 “volunteers” who write daily for free from all over world. Some collaborative businesses are run entirely by the general public and not a CEO.

Since Wikipedia was launched online as “the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit,” it has become the largest depository of information surpassing all other encyclopedias. Articles in Wikipedia are written collaboratively by unpaid volunteers throughout the world, edited and policed to ensure no one falsely adds or destroys information. Wikipedia is a 100% collaborative business where its founders are not its leaders, but the collective community of editors, writers, and police volunteers.

Mozilla, another collaborative company competes against Microsoft, Apple and Google at the same time as it collaborates with them. Mozilla’s Firefox has no employees while Microsoft hires top engineers, yet Firefox gets updated daily by volunteers. In fact, in 2004, Mozilla’s users banded together and raised US$250,000 to help advertise the release of Firefox 1.0 in The New York Times.

Collaboration is not just limited to IT or technology companies. Southwest Airlines and Air Asia have both successfully engaged their customers to collaborate with them to lower their costs through downloading and printing their own airline tickets. Toyota employs collaborative teams to build their cars from scratch. The idea of sharing ideas and innovation between competitors is against every business rule book.

R&D is traditionally protected fiercely and so, the idea of providing propriety information for others to learn off seems crazy. Yet traditional companies like GoldCorp, thrived when they shared and worked together. Leaders that embrace this collaborative model understand that success is not built on “killing the competition” or a “win-lose” model but by collaboratively engaging the world to help you succeed.

The collective wisdom of the “world” always produces better innovative output. Unilever, through www.unilever.com, sources the best ideas and IP from all over the world and then partners with the idea generator to build a business around the idea. So how can I apply this to my organisation and career? If you have a problem and need a plan, your best bet is often to throw together a group of talented individuals and let their collective creative energy go to work. Collaboration works through a combination of passion and purpose, so get people who deeply care about the issue and have a vested interest in solving it.

Collaboration is not new. Early history suggests that tribal systems of collaboration and cooperation, based on trust and kinship, were the norm. This predates the power and competition-based hierarchies of today. The effectiveness of collaborative movements, like the leaderless Alcoholic Anonymous, touching millions through shared ideology, highlights that the future depends on your collaborative capability.

The internet has created a collaborative infrastructure and interface for the 21st century. People can participate in the economy like never before. This change presents far-reaching opportunities for your career too. The skills of leadership in the future will be about sharing everything with everyone and trusting people to support and grow with you. So stop being obsessed with “killing” your competition… Think Collaboration!

The GoldCorp Story

Rob McEwen, chairman and CEO of GoldCorp in Canada, completely changed the gold mining world when he triggered a gold rush by issuing a challenge to the world. He did it by opening all his propriety mining data to the entire world. Then he asked the world to help him study the data and find out where the next 6 million ounces of gold were. And he offered a prize of US$575,000 in his GoldCorp Challenge. The other gold mining companies were shocked. How could McEwen offer up their most private and protected information to everyone — he must be mad!

McEwen knew that the contest entailed big risks as it exposed the company and its propriety information. But he knew the risks of continuing to do things the old way would be worse. He knew he would attract the attention of world-class talent to the problem of finding more gold and speed up exploration.

His risk paid off when Australian Nick Archibald, who had never visited Canada, used 3-D software to identify key areas to mine. Not only did the contest yield copious quantities of gold, it catapulted the under-performing US$100 million GoldCorp into a US$9 billion juggernaut. Forget going to war. Collaboration is way better.

 
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Final Thoughts

So how can I apply this idea of collaboration to my business? So, you have a problem and need a plan– your best bet is often to throw together a group of talented individuals and let their collective creative energy go to work. The reason collaboration works so well is a combination of passion and purpose. For best results, your pool should be of people who deeply care about the issue and have a vested interest in solving it.

Is this collaborative-based system new to the world? Early history suggests a tribal system of collaboration and cooperation, based on trust and kinship was the norm. This system predates the emergence of power-based hierarchies and competition-based systems of today.

Even in modern times, the effectiveness of grassroots movements, such as Alcoholic Anonymous (AA) which has reached untold millions only with a shared ideology and without a leader, highlights that future success may come down to how well you collaborate in the world.

The internet has created a collaborative infrastructure and interface for the 21^st century. People can participate in the economy like never before. This change presents far-reaching opportunities for every company and for every person who gets connected to leverage collaboration to win.

The key to leadership in the 21^st century is not how you can get the best talent into your company to make money for your company but how you can collaborate with all talent from across the world to simultaneously build, grow and enable your organisation to win in this new world.

The skills of leadership for the 21^st century will be about getting everyone in the world to partner with you. It will be about sharing everything you have with everyone and trusting people to support and grow with you. Competition is toast!

To watch a great video on “Kill or Collaborate” from the Be a Leader series, click play:

Roshan Thiran is CEO of Leaderonomics and is excited to see the changes in the HR function. To connect with him, follow him on LinkedIn or Twitter @lepaker.