Cooperate or Compete
Considering that an overriding motivational goal in strategy is to maximize your capacity for independent action, and considering that you want to succeed on your own terms, you can now assess whether it is to your advantage to compete or cooperate. Always keep in mind, however, that both competition and cooperation can help and hinder your company’s goals.
To illustrate the tight link between competition and cooperation, consider Michael Jordan of basketball fame, thought by many to the one of the greatest athletes of all time. His capacity for independent action on the court depended on the mutual cooperation of at least four other competent basketball players on his team. It also depended on having five other competent basketball players as competitors on the court. Opponents on the basketball court cooperated in the sense that they played and abided by the same set of rules, and through their efforts, Jordan could then showcase his superior prowess.
Jordan could not have been as successful if not for the interaction of both his teammates and his competition, and the patent strategist is just as unlikely to succeed without both. In business, the assessment of whether to cooperate or compete is rather straightforward; managing both to your advantage is more of a challenge. In short,
- Cooperate when the benefits of cooperation exceed the constraints imposed by cooperation, and seek to do so on your terms.
- Compete when the benefits of independence exceed the constraints imposed by independence, and seek to use the competitor to improve your performance.
- Do not look at cooperation and competition as a black-and-white issue; you will often cooperate and compete with the same entity at the same time.
Marshall Phelps, who heads Microsoft’s IP effort, states that, “Companies are partners, customers, and competitors at the same time.” This statement encapsulates the shades of gray we discussed earlier, because while some companies may lean more toward cooperation or competition than others, any attempt to make a black-and-white distinction between the two can lead to problems. For example, viewing a relationship as purely cooperative could cause you to relax your protocols for sharing ideas that you have not yet properly protected through a nondisclosure agreement. This could lead to a loss of a trade secret or lost patentability for disclosed inventions. Viewing relationships as purely competitive could cause you to shun a potential customer for your own products. So these three axioms bring forward questions about constraints that make any given relationship cooperative or competitive, and they are situation-specific more than they are organization-specific.
What are the constraints associated with cooperation? What are the constraints associated with independence?
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Ideas come to mind where they choose. We have all probably had an important idea come to us early in the morning when in bed, while in the shower, or perhaps while staring at a sedan that won’t get out of our lane. So should it be a surprise that somewhere out in the deep blue sea, while photographing a 16 foot tiger shark and her two slightly smaller companions, it would pop into my mind that Microsoft is actually good for hi-tech innovation for everyone? Bear in mind that I do not work for Microsoft. The only stake I have in Microsoft is a couple hundred shares of its stock. So why did this thought come to mind?
