by John Brooker | Mar 24, 2012 | Facilitate meetings, Innovate
YES! AND… Creative Gorilla # 84 Sometimes, we can focus so much on one threat, we don’t notice another slipping in from a different angle – laddering can help… “If you look at life one way, there is always cause for alarm.” Elizabeth Bowen Are you looking the right way at competition? Last week, I helped run the meeting of the youngest group in our local Scout Troop, the Beavers. This event was very noisy, sometimes challenging and always fun. We played a popular game called “Rattlesnake” in which the children run the length of the hall as the two leaders throw soft foam balls at their legs. If the ball hits their legs, the child is out of the game. It’s easiest to catch them when they are running as they leap in the air, stop and dodge to avoid the balls. It’s great! We were down to the last four children in the game and as I waited to throw, one of them stopped mid run. I threw the first ball and he dodged it. Next, I pretended to throw the ball at him and he kept leaping in the air. We went on like this for thirty seconds until the other leader walked up behind him and hit his legs with the ball! He was so focussed on me that he had forgotten the threat from the other leader. So It struck me that this is a great analogy for companies. It’s easy in a market to focus on the “established” competition, unaware that someone else can creep up on the outside and “hit your legs”....
