The Only Competitive Advantage You Need
More market intelligence, better privacy rules, faster hardware, improved AI, lesser costs, stronger brand recognition…the list of potential competitive advantages is unending. I have the privilege of hearing this directly from hundreds of senior leaders every year, but the research also backs it up. 57% of companies state that gaining a competitive advantage is one of their top 3 priorities and the smart money is on the rest being busy leveraging competitive advantages they already have.[1]
Competitive advantages are even more critical as today’s leaders are confronting a time of accelerating change on a global scale. We all know the world is forever disordered by pandemic fallout, tech disruption, global instability and increased demands from customers, clients and team members themselves. Just to survive in this massive uncertainty, not to mention lead, we need a competitive advantage. But, I’d posit that most organizations are looking for competitive advantages in the wrong place.
Of course, companies need to consider the standard tangible “competitive advantages” such as better pricing, improved locations and stronger formulas. But they’re ultimately unsustainable and will decline or perish as quickening change takes hold. Here’s the proof, 88% of Fortune 500 firms that existed in 1955 are gone.[2] The life expectancy of a Fortune 500 company today is less than 15 years and declining. While important, the standard tangible competitive advantages that many leaders are still exclusively reaching for are false saviors in the disrupted world we currently live in.
There’s one place and one place only that can build a true, sustainable, and unstoppable competitive advantage. And that’s by building what I call a “discomfort muscle”. It’s a developed capacity to handle the uncomfortable uncertainty in the world and be ready to respond, grow and change, no matter what happens — not shrink or pull back in the face of challenging times and experiences. We build this capacity as leaders. And as leaders we build it into the culture of our companies, communities and even families.
The idea is built on research out of the University of Michigan.[3] They conducted an experiment to study two types of discomfort: physical discomfort, like a broken leg and emotional discomfort, like the loss of a job or a loved one. What they found was mind-blowing. Regardless of the type of discomfort someone was going through, their brains processed it in almost identical ways. So much so that it turns out that you can take Acetaminophen to ease difficult emotions (not suggesting you do that, by the way). Taking it a step further, the more you meet discomfort anywhere, the better you get at handling it everywhere. You go to the gym to build your biceps. You seek out discomfort to build resiliency as a competitive advantage.
In my work with companies and their leaders over the last decade, I’ve found 5 key areas to focus on to build that discomfort muscle.
An alternate reality
I was hearing about a conversation with one of the world’s top AI experts the other day. He spends his days pouring through reams of data, calculations and mathematics. And when he was asked: of all that’s know-able, how much do we know? He answered: almost zero. Of everything that we could know in the world, we know next to nothing. It’s an incredibly humbling (and uncomfortable) idea to confront. When considering our view, we’re so incredibly limited it’s almost unimaginable.
Today’s leaders are building their discomfort muscle by eating the humble pie of seeing other points of view. Not simply by paying lip-service to other perspectives, but digging, probing and questioning how other views and beliefs could actually be true. The more you’re able to go through the discomfort of truly seeing through an alternate reality, the more you’ll be able to keep up with the changes around you.
Commit beyond your comfort zone
Non-committal words such as want, wish, hope, could, try and might, only serve to create additional uncertainty in an already uncertain world. Company leaders not only inspire those around them when they specifically commit, but they bring clarity to their direction and purpose. Committing to things that you know you can do is important. But committing beyond what you already know you can do -- to what might be possible -- is when you really light the fire of change. When you confront the discomfort of committing in the face of uncertainty, it will unleash creativity, ingenuity and determination within yourself and even your team that maybe you didn’t even see prior.
Share a mistake
Every leader knows when working through massive change, and maybe even creating massive change yourself, there are going to be missteps, errors and flat-out failures. They’re the cost of entry to doing anything new. The trick is not to sink into the very-human reaction of being embarrassed, shamed or self-judged for those failures. Not only does that result in executives sometimes hiding failures, but as a culture it makes it not ok to make a mistake, slamming on the brakes of trying anything that hasn’t been done before. Sharing your mistakes, large and small, is certainly uncomfortable for many. But it will create the necessary foundation to grow your true competitive advantage.
Resourcefulness, not resources
I hear from just about every CEO I talk to that there’s hardly ever enough time or budget for what you want to do – and there likely never will be. Instead of stalling out campaigning for more resources, you can take a page out of Tony Robbins’ thinking and reach for more resourcefulness. By maintaining the goal but letting go of the path you thought was necessary to get there, it allows for more creative problem solving to emerge. There is strength in every problem or lack of resource, you just have to be willing to take time to find it.
Do something physically hard
Everything listed above can be done while sitting in your corner office or in the one with a penthouse view. We’re building a discomfort muscle and sometimes it takes some real muscle. The discomfort of doing something physically hard or demanding will strengthen your capacity to do it mentally or emotionally, as well (remember that Michigan study!). Meeting and pushing past the point where you think you have nothing left in the tank is exactly the muscle that you need to flex to have real competitive advantage. Run a marathon (or an ultra-marathon), sign up for that bike race, sign your team up to do some cold plunges with Wim Hoff, any physical discomfort will do. It’s a much easier form of discomfort to find (and feel) and its positive effects will ripple into other areas of your life and business.
You might be asking yourself if any of this will actually work for yourself or for your company. And my favorite example of the discomfort muscle in action is a Seattle-based restaurant named, Addo. Eric Rivera, the CEO, and his team demonstrated their discomfort muscle competitive advantage during the pandemic. Instead of shutting their doors or shutting down completely, they started offering new services to their patrons that led to record sales, beating out even pre-pandemic numbers. Or take the grocery chain, Trader Joes. Their leadership flexes their discomfort muscle competitive advantage by not buying into the traditional “competitive advantages” of wide selection, eCommerce or leading technology. They continue to open new locations and put-up record sales with no online shopping, mainly own-brand offerings and no customer technology perks.
Which brings us to the most important idea.
By developing the discomfort muscle as a leader and sharing it within your organization, a tangible and maybe even a more traditional competitive advantage will emerge. It is the result, not the goal in and of itself. And the best part is the future of your company isn’t staked on those tactics that may emerge. It’s staked on your leadership and your team that have developed their collective discomfort muscle to change, pivot and grow to handle whatever might come next. Ultimately, it’s the only true competitive advantage.
[1] 84% Of Enterprises See Big Data Analytics Changing Their Industries' Competitive Landscapes In The Next Year
Louis Columbus. https://www.forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2014/10/19/84-of-enterprises-see-big-data-analytics-changing-their-industries-competitive-landscapes-in-the-next-year/?sh=2a192fa117de
[2] Fortune 500 firms in 1955 vs. 2014; 88% are gone, and we’re all better off because of that dynamic ‘creative destruction’. Mark J. Perry. https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/fortune-500-firms-in-1955-vs-2014-89-are-gone-and-were-all-better-off-because-of-that-dynamic-creative-destruction/
[3] “Naomi Eisenberger, Matthew Lieberman and Kipling Williams, “Does Rejection Hurt? An fMRI Study of Social Exclusion,” Science 302 (2003): 290–92, doi: 10.1126/science.1089134.”