What Game Are You Actually Playing?

What Game Are You Actually Playing?

Strategy often begins with the wrong question.

We ask: How do we win?

But before asking how to win, perhaps we should ask something more fundamental:

What game are we actually playing?

Imagine walking onto a soccer field carrying an NFL playbook. The athletes may be talented. The plays may be brilliant. The coaches may have spent months preparing. None of it matters. They are playing the wrong game.

Or imagine playing poker with a pinochle deck. Or chess using checker moves.

Absurd? Of course.

Yet companies do versions of this every day.

First, Understand the Game

Every industry operates according to a collection of rules.

Some are actual rules: laws, regulations, standards, contracts, physics, capital requirements, patents, and technological limitations.

Others are not rules at all—they are conventions.

“This is how products in our industry are sold.”

“Customers expect to purchase this way.”

“Our competitors have always priced this way.”

“This is what companies like ours do.”

Those statements may describe how the game has historically been played. They don't necessarily describe how it must be played tomorrow.

And, that distinction matters.

A chess grandmaster doesn't become unconventional by moving a bishop like a rook. That's not strategy; it's simply violating the rules.

The better strategist understands exactly what the bishop can do, what the opponent expects it to do, and how those expectations can be used against them.

There Are Rules—and Then There Are “Rules”

When examining an industry, it helps to separate its apparent rules into three categories.

Immutable rules are constraints you realistically cannot change: physics, laws, or certain regulatory requirements.

Structural rules result from industry economics: capital intensity, switching costs, supply chains, network effects, distribution structures, or economies of scale. They may be difficult to change, but they aren't necessarily permanent.

Then there are assumed rules—things everyone believes because everyone else believes them.

Those are the interesting ones.

Because an assumed rule may not be a rule at all… It may be an opportunity.

When Rules Become a Prison

Success can actually make this problem worse.

When organizations succeed within a particular game, they become very good at playing according to its rules. Processes emerge around them. Metrics reinforce them. Organizations are designed around them. Executives are promoted because they understand them.

Eventually the rules stop being something the organization follows and become something the organization believes.

That is when strategic orthodoxy develops.

And orthodoxy creates opportunity for someone willing to ask an uncomfortable question: Why?

Why must customers buy this way?

Why must we own these assets?

Why does the product need these features?

Why do customers have to pay upfront?

Why are we competing on this measure of performance?

Why are we trying to beat a competitor at the game they are best at playing?

Sometimes there is an excellent answer.

Sometimes the answer is simply:

“Because that's how we've always done it.”

That's where The UnConventional Strategist starts digging.

Don't Beat Them at Their Game

Traditional competitive strategy frequently focuses on outperforming competitors.

Build a better product. Lower the price. Add features. Increase sales coverage. Improve service. Spend more on marketing.

All may be perfectly legitimate strategies.

But they share an important assumption:

You have accepted the existing definition of the game.

If your competitor has spent decades optimizing its organization to win that game, why challenge it on precisely those terms?

The unconventional strategist asks a different question:

Can I change what winning means?

Instead of matching a competitor's strengths, find a dimension of competition where those strengths matter less.

Instead of building a bigger sales organization, change how customers buy.

Instead of producing a better version of the existing product, redefine the job customers are trying to accomplish.

Instead of competing feature against feature, change the economic model.

Instead of attacking the castle, make the castle irrelevant.

That's strategic asymmetry.

The objective isn't to break the rules. It's to discover which supposed rules never needed to exist in the first place.

Know the Rules Before You Change Them

There is an important caveat: Being unconventional doesn't mean being contrarian simply for the sake of being different.

You need to understand conventional strategy before you can intelligently depart from it.

Great jazz musicians understand music theory. Great chefs understand ingredients and technique. Great chess players understand conventional openings.

Mastery often precedes meaningful deviation.

The strategist who doesn't understand the rules and ignores them is reckless.

The strategist who understands the rules and blindly follows them is conventional.

But the strategist who understands why the rules exist, which ones matter, which ones are assumptions, and which can be changed has something far more valuable:

Strategic freedom.

Four Questions Before Building Your Strategy

Before deciding how your organization should compete, ask four questions:

1. What game are we actually playing? Define the competition from the customer's perspective, not simply through traditional industry boundaries.

2. What are the actual rules?Identify the legal, economic, technological, and operational constraints that genuinely govern the market.

3. Which “rules” are really assumptions? Listen closely for statements beginning with “customers always,” “our industry requires,” “you have to,” and “nobody would ever.”

4. Which rule could we change that would make our competitor's advantage less valuable?

That last question may be the most important.

Because unconventional strategy isn't about being different.

It's about creating advantage.

Choose the Game You Want to Play

Organizations spend enormous amounts of energy trying to become better players.

They benchmark competitors. Study best practices. Improve processes. Close product gaps. Recruit better talent. Optimize execution.

There's nothing inherently wrong with any of that.

But benchmarking contains a hidden assumption:

We have agreed to play the same game.

Sometimes that's exactly what you should do… Sometimes it isn't.

The greatest strategic opportunity may not come from finding a better move on the existing board. It may come from recognizing that the board itself is negotiable.

So before building your next strategy, don't immediately ask:

How do we win?

Ask: What game are we playing?

Then: Who created the rules?

And finally:

What happens if we change them?

The UnConventional Strategist doesn't break rules simply to be unconventional. They understand the game well enough to recognize which rules are essential, which are habits disguised as rules, and which can be changed to create an advantage competitors weren't prepared to defend against.

Learn the game. Master the rules. Find the assumptions. Create the asymmetry. Change the game.

Jay Nakagawa is recognized as a global thought leader and keynote speaker in Strategic Competitive Intelligence, Jay is passionate about helping organizations see around corners and make smarter, faster decisions in complex markets. His website is www.JayNakagawa.com.