Discussion: View Thread

EXCERPT from "Torturing your rivals," Economist, Aug 26, 2004,

A new American business book causes a stir, even before its publication

Hardball: Are You Playing to Play or Playing to Win
by George Stalk, Rob Lachenauer, John Butman
Harvard Business School Press; (December 1, 2004)
ISBN: 1591391679

How hard do American businessmen compete? The answer from Europe, which
tends to view American business practices with horror and disdain, might be
too hard. But a forthcoming book by George Stalk, a senior partner at the
Boston Consulting Group (BCG), and Rob Lachenauer, boss of GEO2, a
car-engine technology firm, makes the opposite claim. American business
schools and executives now pay far too much attention to "soft" management
issues, such as leadership, corporate culture, customer care and employee
management. Popular business books urge managers to hug their customers or
find the "leader within". Nobody focuses on what really matters in business,
they argue: the profits and pleasure that come from making competitors
suffer.

Their book, "Hardball," offers several strategies for the manager who
suddenly realises that he is too squishy. Surprisingly, unleashing "massive
and overwhelming force" against rivals is not top of the list. Thanks to
America's bankruptcy courts, killing a competitor outright gives him a
chance to return, cleansed of debt and unburdened of past mistakes. Far
better, argue the authors, to weaken rivals to a point of near-death-and
keep them there. This can be done in several fun ways: by systematically
undercutting their most profitable products and services, luring them into
lines of business that will make them less profitable, stealing their ideas
and-well, you get the picture.

Although not due out until October, "Hardball" is already causing a stir. A
recent article in the Harvard Business Review, in which Messrs Stalk and
Lachenauer aired their ideas, got an icy reception in some quarters:

http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/b02/en/common/item_detail.jhtm
l?id=R0404C
[If the above hyperlink is broken you should paste the end of it back on in
your browser's url window to have it load properly.]

In their original draft, they had urged businessmen to focus not just on
creating "competitive advantage" but also "unfair advantage". That phrase
was replaced with the decidedly softer "decisive advantage". With the
editors at the Harvard Business School Press, the internal police at BCG
also balked at some of the language, chuckles Mr Stalk. One chapter heading,
urging managers to "Plagiarise, don't shade your eyes", became "Take it and
make it your own". Another, "Drive up your competitors' costs," became
"Entice your competitor into retreat". (An earlier version was the
thoroughly wimpish "Entice your competitor into doing something different".)
Some of BCG's European partners, meanwhile, have reacted coolly to the book,
pointing out that talk of gleefully stomping on one's rivals is far too rude
for Europe's cultured boardrooms.

Amazon link for it:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1591391679/qid=1093690637/sr=1
-2/ref=sr_1_2/103-1186543-0791009?v=glance&s=books

[If the above hyperlink is broken you should paste the end of it back on in
your browser's url window to have it load properly.]

Cybercollegially,
Charles Wankel
Mg-Ed-Dv List Director wankelc@stjohns.edu
http://management-education.net/

As always, you are invited to post your comments to our virtual community
at:
Mg-ed-dv@maelstrom.stjohns.edu

There is another link and additional information at...

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item.jhtml?id=4269&t=strategy



Regards,

Fred Nickols, CPT
Distance Consulting
"Assistance at a Distance"
nickols@att.net
www.nickols.us


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Management Education and Development Discussion
> [mailto:MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU]On Behalf Of Charles Wankel
> Sent: Saturday, August 28, 2004 7:02 AM
> To: MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
> Subject: Gleefully stomping on one's rivals - new management book
>
>
> EXCERPT from "Torturing your rivals," Economist, Aug 26, 2004,
>
> A new American business book causes a stir, even before its publication
>
> Hardball: Are You Playing to Play or Playing to Win
> by George Stalk, Rob Lachenauer, John Butman
> Harvard Business School Press; (December 1, 2004)
> ISBN: 1591391679
>
> How hard do American businessmen compete? The answer from Europe, which
> tends to view American business practices with horror and
> disdain, might be
> too hard. But a forthcoming book by George Stalk, a senior partner at the
> Boston Consulting Group (BCG), and Rob Lachenauer, boss of GEO2, a
> car-engine technology firm, makes the opposite claim. American business
> schools and executives now pay far too much attention to "soft" management
> issues, such as leadership, corporate culture, customer care and employee
> management. Popular business books urge managers to hug their customers or
> find the "leader within". Nobody focuses on what really matters
> in business,
> they argue: the profits and pleasure that come from making competitors
> suffer.
>
> Their book, "Hardball," offers several strategies for the manager who
> suddenly realises that he is too squishy. Surprisingly,
> unleashing "massive
> and overwhelming force" against rivals is not top of the list. Thanks to
> America's bankruptcy courts, killing a competitor outright gives him a
> chance to return, cleansed of debt and unburdened of past mistakes. Far
> better, argue the authors, to weaken rivals to a point of near-death-and
> keep them there. This can be done in several fun ways: by systematically
> undercutting their most profitable products and services, luring them into
> lines of business that will make them less profitable, stealing
> their ideas
> and-well, you get the picture.
>
> Although not due out until October, "Hardball" is already causing
> a stir. A
> recent article in the Harvard Business Review, in which Messrs Stalk and
> Lachenauer aired their ideas, got an icy reception in some quarters:
>
> http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/b02/en/common/item_d
etail.jhtm
l?id=R0404C
[If the above hyperlink is broken you should paste the end of it back on in
your browser's url window to have it load properly.]

In their original draft, they had urged businessmen to focus not just on
creating "competitive advantage" but also "unfair advantage". That phrase
was replaced with the decidedly softer "decisive advantage". With the
editors at the Harvard Business School Press, the internal police at BCG
also balked at some of the language, chuckles Mr Stalk. One chapter heading,
urging managers to "Plagiarise, don't shade your eyes", became "Take it and
make it your own". Another, "Drive up your competitors' costs," became
"Entice your competitor into retreat". (An earlier version was the
thoroughly wimpish "Entice your competitor into doing something different".)
Some of BCG's European partners, meanwhile, have reacted coolly to the book,
pointing out that talk of gleefully stomping on one's rivals is far too rude
for Europe's cultured boardrooms.

Amazon link for it:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1591391679/qid=1093690637/sr=1
-2/ref=sr_1_2/103-1186543-0791009?v=glance&s=books

[If the above hyperlink is broken you should paste the end of it back on in
your browser's url window to have it load properly.]

Cybercollegially,
Charles Wankel
Mg-Ed-Dv List Director wankelc@stjohns.edu
http://management-education.net/

As always, you are invited to post your comments to our virtual community
at:
Mg-ed-dv@maelstrom.stjohns.edu

Those corporations whose leaders take them down the path of "gleefully
stomping on their rivals" might meet the criteria of sociopath. See the
link below for a movie about the corporation:

http://www.thecorporation.com/about/

Regards,

Fred Nickols, CPT
Distance Consulting
"Assistance at a Distance"
nickols@att.net
www.nickols.us

What is interesting about this book and Stalk's motivation for writing
it, is that it came after a very serious medical condition in which he
had to face the prospect of his death. He stated in an interview with
the Globe and Mail that the time he had to spend in bed recovering and
reflecting on the meaning of his life, he felt that he had to make a
contribution and this was it. I thought that was the saddest statement
I ever read from anybody. That upon reflection of the meaning of life,
you are inspired to write a book about competition, aggression and
gaining unfair advantage. Not a thing about all of this being petty and
silly when faced with the prospect of your own mortality- just one big,
lousy game. I think that said more about Stalk than anything else.



Deborah Nixon
University of Toronto
704 Windermere Ave
Toronto Ont M6S 3M1
Ph: 416-763-6985
Fax: 416-763-3361



-----Original Message-----
From: Management Education and Development Discussion
[mailto:MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU] On Behalf Of Charles Wankel
Sent: Saturday, August 28, 2004 7:02 AM
To: MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
Subject: Gleefully stomping on one's rivals - new management book


EXCERPT from "Torturing your rivals," Economist, Aug 26, 2004,

A new American business book causes a stir, even before its publication

Hardball: Are You Playing to Play or Playing to Win
by George Stalk, Rob Lachenauer, John Butman
Harvard Business School Press; (December 1, 2004)
ISBN: 1591391679

How hard do American businessmen compete? The answer from Europe, which
tends to view American business practices with horror and disdain, might
be too hard. But a forthcoming book by George Stalk, a senior partner at
the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), and Rob Lachenauer, boss of GEO2, a
car-engine technology firm, makes the opposite claim. American business
schools and executives now pay far too much attention to "soft"
management issues, such as leadership, corporate culture, customer care
and employee management. Popular business books urge managers to hug
their customers or find the "leader within". Nobody focuses on what
really matters in business, they argue: the profits and pleasure that
come from making competitors suffer.

Their book, "Hardball," offers several strategies for the manager who
suddenly realises that he is too squishy. Surprisingly, unleashing
"massive and overwhelming force" against rivals is not top of the list.
Thanks to America's bankruptcy courts, killing a competitor outright
gives him a chance to return, cleansed of debt and unburdened of past
mistakes. Far better, argue the authors, to weaken rivals to a point of
near-death-and keep them there. This can be done in several fun ways: by
systematically undercutting their most profitable products and services,
luring them into lines of business that will make them less profitable,
stealing their ideas and-well, you get the picture.

Although not due out until October, "Hardball" is already causing a
stir. A recent article in the Harvard Business Review, in which Messrs
Stalk and Lachenauer aired their ideas, got an icy reception in some
quarters:

http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/b02/en/common/item_detail.
jhtm
l?id=R0404C
[If the above hyperlink is broken you should paste the end of it back on
in your browser's url window to have it load properly.]

In their original draft, they had urged businessmen to focus not just
on creating "competitive advantage" but also "unfair advantage". That
phrase was replaced with the decidedly softer "decisive advantage". With
the editors at the Harvard Business School Press, the internal police at
BCG also balked at some of the language, chuckles Mr Stalk. One chapter
heading, urging managers to "Plagiarise, don't shade your eyes", became
"Take it and make it your own". Another, "Drive up your competitors'
costs," became "Entice your competitor into retreat". (An earlier
version was the thoroughly wimpish "Entice your competitor into doing
something different".) Some of BCG's European partners, meanwhile, have
reacted coolly to the book, pointing out that talk of gleefully stomping
on one's rivals is far too rude for Europe's cultured boardrooms.

Amazon link for it:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1591391679/qid=1093690637/
sr=1
-2/ref=sr_1_2/103-1186543-0791009?v=glance&s=books

[If the above hyperlink is broken you should paste the end of it back on
in your browser's url window to have it load properly.]

Cybercollegially,
Charles Wankel
Mg-Ed-Dv List Director wankelc@stjohns.edu
http://management-education.net/

As always, you are invited to post your comments to our virtual
community
at:
Mg-ed-dv@maelstrom.stjohns.edu

Well, we are all on some kind of developmental trip, and that's where he is. Not sad, necessarily, just where he is, in my opinion. Maybe, having recognized what he wrote about, he will be free to grow beyond it.

Edryce

deborah nixon <deborahnixon@sympatico.ca> wrote:
What is interesting about this book and Stalk's motivation for writing
it, is that it came after a very serious medical condition in which he
had to face the prospect of his death. He stated in an interview with
the Globe and Mail that the time he had to spend in bed recovering and
reflecting on the meaning of his life, he felt that he had to make a
contribution and this was it. I thought that was the saddest statement
I ever read from anybody. That upon reflection of the meaning of life,
you are inspired to write a book about competition, aggression and
gaining unfair advantage. Not a thing about all of this being petty and
silly when faced with the prospect of your own mortality- just one big,
lousy game. I think that said more about Stalk than anything else.



Deborah Nixon
University of Toronto
704 Windermere Ave
Toronto Ont M6S 3M1
Ph: 416-763-6985
Fax: 416-763-3361



-----Original Message-----
From: Management Education and Development Discussion
[mailto:MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU] On Behalf Of Charles Wankel
Sent: Saturday, August 28, 2004 7:02 AM
To: MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
Subject: Gleefully stomping on one's rivals - new management book


EXCERPT from "Torturing your rivals," Economist, Aug 26, 2004,

A new American business book causes a stir, even before its publication

Hardball: Are You Playing to Play or Playing to Win
by George Stalk, Rob Lachenauer, John Butman
Harvard Business School Press; (December 1, 2004)
ISBN: 1591391679

How hard do American businessmen compete? The answer from Europe, which
tends to view American business practices with horror and disdain, might
be too hard. But a forthcoming book by George Stalk, a senior partner at
the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), and Rob Lachenauer, boss of GEO2, a
car-engine technology firm, makes the opposite claim. American business
schools and executives now pay far too much attention to "soft"
management issues, such as leadership, corporate culture, customer care
and employee management. Popular business books urge managers to hug
their customers or find the "leader within". Nobody focuses on what
really matters in business, they argue: the profits and pleasure that
come from making competitors suffer.

Their book, "Hardball," offers several strategies for the manager who
suddenly realises that he is too squishy. Surprisingly, unleashing
"massive and overwhelming force" against rivals is not top of the list.
Thanks to America's bankruptcy courts, killing a competitor outright
gives him a chance to return, cleansed of debt and unburdened of past
mistakes. Far better, argue the authors, to weaken rivals to a point of
near-death-and keep them there. This can be done in several fun ways: by
systematically undercutting their most profitable products and services,
luring them into lines of business that will make them less profitable,
stealing their ideas and-well, you get the picture.

Although not due out until October, "Hardball" is already causing a
stir. A recent article in the Harvard Business Review, in which Messrs
Stalk and Lachenauer aired their ideas, got an icy reception in some
quarters:

http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/b02/en/common/item_detail.
jhtm
l?id=R0404C
[If the above hyperlink is broken you should paste the end of it back on
in your browser's url window to have it load properly.]

In their original draft, they had urged businessmen to focus not just
on creating "competitive advantage" but also "unfair advantage". That
phrase was replaced with the decidedly softer "decisive advantage". With
the editors at the Harvard Business School Press, the internal police at
BCG also balked at some of the language, chuckles Mr Stalk. One chapter
heading, urging managers to "Plagiarise, don't shade your eyes", became
"Take it and make it your own". Another, "Drive up your competitors'
costs," became "Entice your competitor into retreat". (An earlier
version was the thoroughly wimpish "Entice your competitor into doing
something different".) Some of BCG's European partners, meanwhile, have
reacted coolly to the book, pointing out that talk of gleefully stomping
on one's rivals is far too rude for Europe's cultured boardrooms.

Amazon link for it:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1591391679/qid=1093690637/
sr=1
-2/ref=sr_1_2/103-1186543-0791009?v=glance&s=books

[If the above hyperlink is broken you should paste the end of it back on
in your browser's url window to have it load properly.]

Cybercollegially,
Charles Wankel
Mg-Ed-Dv List Director wankelc@stjohns.edu
http://management-education.net/

As always, you are invited to post your comments to our virtual
community
at:
Mg-ed-dv@maelstrom.stjohns.edu


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Before we delve into sharing opinions about this book and its authors,
it might be useful to realize that all that's available to review is the
article about the book, not the book itself. Actually, since access to
the article requires paying a fee, we're only discussing an excerpt of
an article about an article about the book.

I paid the $7.00 to read the HBR article. If I hadn't known it was
controversial, my reaction would have been "nothing new there." Know
your organizational strengths and weaknesses, know your competition's
strengths and weaknesses, exploit areas where your organization is
strong and others are weak. Basic business 101. Nice twist on the
value of supporting a weak competitor but that's about it.

I suspect they felt driven to speak, to leave a legacy, because it takes
a lot of courage to tell the emperor when he's naked. Consultants who
tell naked emperors that they're naked tend to not have very many
customers.

They appear to be willing to discuss the elephant in the room, the fact
that the first priority of an organization is to survive and grow. To
fail to grow is to die. There's a lot of organizational death occurring
and I agree with the authors that there needs to be some fundamental
changes in how businesses strategize their survival tactics. It doesn't
matter how well you implement any strategy if your organization ceases
to exist.

The tactics that I read are closer to guerilla warfare rather than
relying on brute force. They are subtle strategies that appear to be the
antithesis of "stomping". Subtle sabotage has been proven to be a
workable survival strategy in many biological, political and organic
systems.

I wonder if the problems presented in Kaplan and Norton's, The
Strategy-Focused Organization, are because many organizational
strategies are not effective in developing robust organizations that are
tough enough to thrive in a completive environment? They state that
only 5% of the workforce understand their company's strategy, that only
25% of managers have incentives linked to strategy, that 60% of
organizations don't link budgets to strategy, and 85% of executive teams
spend less than one hour per month discussing strategy.

People don't support strategies that they feel are ineffective and that
may be why so many organizational strategies fail to be successfully
implemented. It's a form of internal subtle sabotage.

I think that what the authors are trying to say is very simple. It's
time to refocus on developing better strategies for organizational
survival.

Christie Mason

If you want to delve further into articles about the article about the
book look at
http://www.economist.com/business/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3139764 (
have to wonder about the relevancy of "gleefully stomping on one's
rivals is far too rude for Europe's cultured boardrooms". "Rude" is
not a business metric. There are a lot of "rude" very successful
non-European and non-American companies, and their number is growing
Those "rude" competitors are very successful, as I think about it, I
can't name any successful organizations that aren't deemed "rude".)

http://www.stevedenning.com/SIN-112-hardball-vs-softball-strategies.html
(This person appears to be upset that the article unfavorably mentions,
only in one paragraph, that 4 out of 5 current business books are about
being "soft". He doesn't respond with how these "soft" books have
worked to improve organizational survival (perhaps because they
haven't?) and there's nothing in the article that I read that supports
his contention that the article supports the adoption of becoming a
"mean-spirited, ruthless, adversarial manager." This article is about
how an organization can be competitively, externally "tough", not about
creating adversarial internal strategies.

James Carse, a professor of Religion spoke of finite and infinite games.
For Carse, finite games are games where the rules exist to determine who
wins and who loses. Most sports are finite games. Infinite games, on
the other hand, are games where the purpose is to keep playing. Most of
us can clearly see the difference when we examine relationships -- some
play relationships as finite games -- determining winners and losers.
What does this say about capitalism? What does this say about
relationships between companies and between countries which support
certain kinds of capitalist economies?