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> if you are going to lose, do something different. Rather, I say if you're going to lose, build for the future. Don't optimize for seventh instead of ninth p
by llimllib 17y ago
> if you are going to lose, do something different.
Rather, I say if you're going to lose, build for the future. Don't optimize for seventh instead of ninth place, try to win the championship a few years from now.
- krschultz 17y agoThat is true in a place like the NBA where equality among competing organizations is a goal of the governing body, i.e. the draft hypothetically helping the losers become equal to the winners. Just keep plugging along and eventually you will be bailed out. In something like business, or in Gladwell's example lower level sports, this is not the case. Small schools will always be small, they will always have fewer kids to pick from for their team and thus need to get unorthodox to gain an edge. In the business world, if I'm competing with 20 people vs 20,000 people I need to get unorthodox to shake things up, even if my solution isn't perfectly optimal.
- llimllib 17y agoThere's also more opportunity to invent a whole field in business than there is in NBA basketball. Totally agreed. Nonetheless, I think my point in the conclusion holds: if a company is not optimizing what you think they should be optimizing, you're more likely expecting the wrong goal than they are failing to optimize for the goal you expect.