As business leaders, we make decisions every day about how our firms and our people compete.
Most of us choose to focus on creating value and solving problems. A few resort to “win at all” costs type behaviors. This latter group poses some vexing problems for those of us that prefer the high-road style of competing for business, but the problems are not insurmountable.
The current competition for political office offers an interesting learning opportunity for all of us. And just when you think that the negative attack ads cannot become any more blatant or vicious, this season’s crop of politicians have managed to outdo themselves.
Political Buffoonery is the New Competitive Strategy:
Political ads this season have in my observation managed to hit a new high in audacity and ridiculousness, correlating to a new low on my informal Fair Competition Meter.
Perhaps it’s the state that I live in: Illinois, where serving as Governor typically translates into indictment on several counts and some quality time in jail, but the attack ads are over the top this year. And darned funny in some cases.
I love (He says sarcastically) the ones that put some real heart into their production value. They typically start out with soft music, a soft voice and a pleasant scene, right before resolving into something that positions the hapless opponent as someone sent from the lowest tier of Dante’s Inferno on a mission to lure us back into the pit. I would love to be a fly on the wall in the production meetings for these ridiculous commercials. Sadly, they probably do sway some voters.
My favorite dumb political ad comes from our friends up north in Winnipeg. This video starts out with the expected claims about the incompetent incumbent mayor and resolves with what can only be described as an emmy-winning scene produced by complete morons. I’m sorry, but I laughed out loud at the ending of this commercial, because I cannot believe that someone actually thought to package this scene and use the words, “And he kicks children in the face,” in an ad. (Note: it’s not clear whether this ad is genuine or a spoof, but enjoy the chuckle, and frankly, it’s not far off of what we’re seeing and hearing ever day.)
Six Ideas on Forming the Right Competitive Culture:
1. Choose to compete with class and professionalism. We all choose our style of competing in business. We have the opportunity to attack and assassinate the character of our competitors, or, we can go about winning business with class and professionalism. Opting for the latter doesn’t mean that you don’t compete with ferocity, it just means that you do so in a manner that allows you to comfortably look in the mirror at yourself.
2. Use negative competition as rocket fuel for your team. Competition is inherent in business (and life). Recognize it as fuel that catalyzes action and drives improvement. Use it to motivate, energize and foster innovation.
3. Don’t flirt with character disaster. The philosophy of “Win at All Costs” is an invitation to flirt with and engage in unethical behavior. Resist the flirtation. The cost of your character should be higher than winning the next deal.
4. Negative attacks showcase hollow strategies. Attacking competitors in front of your customer shows how weak and unarmed you truly are. The negative attack is the last resort of the desperate and incompetent. If you have no way to truly create value for your customer, your last and best attempt is to discredit your opponent. This is not a sustainable strategy.
5. Recognize that some people buy the negative sell and you cannot control it. Don’t reduce yourself to your competitor’s level and start launching missiles in return. Focus on solving problems, creating value and resist being baited into a war of mutual destruction. You might lose once in awhile to your muck-raking competitor. That’s OK. The negative buyer is typically the worst kind of customer.
6. Don’t be baited into playing the game. It is good to understand your competitor’s style and tactics. However, resist the urge to build your messaging as a point-counter-point response. Instead, ensure that your process of engaging the client and building value for your offerings makes the negative attacks look like the childish, desperate attempts that they truly are.
The Bottom-Line for Now
Negative political ads are as old as this republic (and older), and likely won’t disappear anytime soon. That’s too bad. The same goes for negative tactics in business. As a leader, you set the tone for how your firm and your team members compete. I vote to focus on creating meaningful differentiation from my competitors and to putting all of our energy into solving customer problems. While the noise from the muck-raking competitors is annoying, it’s rarely fatal to anyone other than those raking the muck in the first place.
Art,
Politicians operate in the ultimate win-lose scenario and have gravitated to a position in which they believe that all they have to do to win is make their opponent lose. Not only does this approach encourage negative ads, but it leads them to the next pitfall–that they don’t have to actually do very much for their constituents.
In a business analogy, organizations who remain product-centered only worry about beating the competitors’ products, not designing better solutions for their customers. When markets are enhanced by fresh new ideas that benefit the customer, every player in the market wins.
Thanks for the post. -Bill
Bill, thanks for the great comment! -Art
Besides current political advertisements, especially here in Nevada where Sharron Angle and Harry Reid are after each other in a very close race where many are voting on the “lesser of two evils,” there are certainly races in other industries of business. However, what strikes me is the economical collapse of the United States. It seems this is because of two things, mortgages, and the construction trade.
Yes the construction trade, because this trade has direct involvement on tax breaks, on illegal immigration, crime and so forth. The construction trade for a long time, many years since perhaps 2000 when it was really picking up, has been a part of hiring employees for cheap. The housing market was growing and houses were being built. So construction workers are needed and hired, including illegals. Now this is not the problem, most of the time Hispanic workers are very good the problem came with employers. As the market became tighter, loans were and are becoming harder to obtain, work as a direct result has plummeted. So an employer hire illegals say for a fence build, gets 20 guys to build the fence and does not pay them and says they will be reported to INS. The job gets done quickly, cheap, and extremely profitably. This continues in the bidding for jobs, where someone who hires illegals doesn’t pay workers comp, and other fees so the jobs can be bid lower. This puts the other employers at a huge disadvantage. And they must result in wrong competitive tactics just to stay afloat. This type of competition is not only wrong in construction, but in politics, in life and in business. It is hard to avoid such actions but these actions are what is bringing the country down. The simplest problems lead to so much more down the line.
Alexander, you raise some tough issues. Thanks for reading and for sharing your thoughts. -Art
This is a great topic for this time of year, as the elections are right on us. I’m also from Nevada, watching the race between Harry Reid and Sharron Angle. I thought their were a lot of negative political ads before the primaries, but now the bashing is getting worse, as both sides are being pulled into the competitive game. I think that many voters are also getting pulled in to these strategies, and the state might be stuck with the wrong candidate because of the images portrayed in these ads.
I haven’t seen any ads like the one from Winnipeg, except for on Saturday Night Live, but even the parodies have an influence on voters. I would love to only see political ads that support the candidates, but I doubt that will happen.
Negative competition can bring the worst out in people and can cause a loss of integrity. Competing with class and professionalism allows people to maintain their integrity. This strategy can have a lot of influence over the customers, whether a service or a product is being advertised. This strategy would also provide clearer evidence as to why an attempt may have failed, since it wasn’t distorted by negative competition.
Jennifer, you’ve got a fascinating race in your home state. I can only imagine the ads and barbs flying back and forth. Love your statement on negative competition. Well said! -Art
Hi Art, thanks again for an insightful blog. I have been watching two politcal contests very closely – the Nevada Senate race between Reid and Angle and the California Governors race between Whitman and Brown. Both have sunk to the depths of negative campaigning with Reid blasting Angle as an wacko extremist and Whitman refusing to give up negative ads, even when her opponent Brown said he would.
What Whitman and Reid both know is that negative ads work. While Americans say they wish the political environment would clean up its act and act civilized, we choose candidates who represent the opposite.
When voters begin to chose class and dignity over trash talk, the politicians will pay attention, and clean up their act.
Thanks!
Casey
Thanks, Casey! I’m looking forward to that day, but not holding my breath. Two fascinating cases…looking forward to the outcomes…and mostly to wrapping up this season with some fresh ideas from our newly elected leaders. Hey, I’m an optimist! -Art
Art,
Your point on negative attacks showing hollow strategies is dead on. When a vendor comes to me and wastes my time talking about how bad their competition is, I will make every attempt to avoid doing business with them. Not only does it show that they’re not the most competent competitor, to me it says that they’ll be trash-talking their competitor on my dime instead of doing the work. Trying to belittle the competition comes off as extremely unprofessional.
Though it might not always be the case, I like to think that if a company makes ethical choices, treats competition and customers correctly, and realizes the value that competition adds for customers, it will come out ahead.
Thanks for the post.
-Nate
Great article, Art.
Also being in Reno, Nevada, I am aware of all the negative ads that Angle and Reid throw at each other. However, something else I’ve noticed is that there are many negative ads *on behalf of* Reid and Angle attacking the other person. These groups have no direct relationship to either campaign and thus are officially out of their control. So even when candidates, like Jerry Brown, claim to stay on the positive, they get dragged back in the dirt by their own special interests. I’m curious as to how third-party influences fit in to your bullet points.
Though I do have to say (not really to you but to the country): Let’s not pretend that we’ve reached the bottom of the barrel with negative ads because it’s ignorant of history. American politics haven’t always been pristine, as we always seem to think of the past. There have been negative ads (in the form of fliers, book,s leaflets, campaigners, etc.) that have been *much* worse than those today for about as long as there’s been an America, especially considering the Vice President used to be the other party’s *losing* Presidential candidate. These ads attacked candidates’ character, religion, ethnic background, and ethical fortitude, and these attacks often extended to wives and family members. There were fights in Congress and duels as a result. Even within the past 50 years, we’ve had the Daisy ad and the Willie Horton ad, among others, that were worse than I’ve seen in Nevada this time around.