Healthy Terrain, Healthy Business: The Red Queen Hypothesis

“Competition and cooperation are not contraries. They have no opposite meaning. They are complimentary. In every aspect of life, we do both. Schools are highly cooperative endeavours within which scholars vigorously compete. The Olympic Games combine immense cooperation in structure and rules with intense competition in events. As the runners leap from the blocks, competition […]

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Target Fixation: Intel’s Strategic Focus and the Trap of Success

“Past success can breed complacency and constrain future innovation.” — Robert Alexander Burgelman Imagine you’re a fighter pilot in a chaotic dogfight, adrenaline surging as you zero in on an enemy plane. Your vision tunnels on that target, and you start to lose awareness of everything else. Pilots call this target fixation — becoming so focused on one object

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The Map Is Not the Territory: The Real Shape of Strategy

“The Map is not the Territory” — Alfred Korzybski For generations, the German village of Mödlareuth lived as one. A narrow brook — the Tannbach — trickled through its centre, technically dividing Bavaria from Thuringia. But for the people who called it home, it was simply a stream. They crossed it daily to attend school, share meals, marry neighbours, and bury their

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The Mirror Principle: Paradigm Blindness Blinkers Organizations to Change

“You will act like the sort of person you conceive yourself to be.” — Maxwell Maltz “The external world is an echo of your internal world.” — Tom Asacker Organizations, like individuals, are guided by self-image. They act not based on external reality, but on what they believe themselves to be. If a company sees itself as an industrial manufacturer, it

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How to Navigate the Osborne Effect Without Killing Your Business Too Soon

“In most companies there would be months, perhaps years, of savage debate… The spectre of cannibalisation would roam the hallways, striking fear into fainthearted executives.” — Gary Hamel [TL;DR Some companies struggle to kill off profitable but customer-hostile revenue streams, fearing short-term losses. But clinging to a fading model often proves more costly than the pivot itself. From

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