The Brainzooming Group

I’ve finally quit asking an interview question about situations in which prospective job candidates would make a conscious strategic decision to bluff. While based on a real-life situation where I had to bluff during a senior executive presentation, hardly anyone would identify when they’d do the same.

That’s too bad, because bluffing can be an effective strategy – just refer back to yesterday’s post about Joe DiMaggio. The key is to not overdo it and to be able to sustain the implications of having your bluff called.

I’ve bluffed several times recently with outside parties looking for assistance where there was little downside if they said no – which the first one did. In every other case though, the strategy resulted in a positive gain for both of us, interestingly enough.

So how about you?

What’s a situation where you’ve had to bluff either in business or personally? Have you seen someone else bluff and get called on it? Or someone bluffing and winning big as a result?

Share your stories in the comments section, and tomorrow we’ll cover successful bluffing tips from the world of poker (hey, ESPN thinks it’s a sport).

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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The start of baseball spring training reminds me of a favorite baseball story with a great sports strategy lesson. It’s been so long since I heard it, who knows if it’s true, but it’s so rich with strategy lessons, it almost doesn’t matter!

The Story

During a Yankee World Series appearance, Joe DiMaggio’s arm was reportedly injured. Scouting reports said opponents could run on anything hit to center since supposedly DiMaggio couldn’t throw. How did DiMaggio deal with this blatant weakness?

Even though hurt, he could make one throw a day. Most people would save that one throw for an important play late in the game. Not DiMaggio. Before the game, with the opposing team on-field, he’d uncork a bullet from center to home plate. Seeing this for themselves, the other team wouldn’t dare try to take advantage of DiMaggio’s arm by attempting to grab an extra base when things really counted.

Strategy Lesson One

Strategy lesson one focuses on the fundamental strategic question, “What matters?” In this case, preventing runners from advancing on balls hit to center was paramount. And since DiMaggio’s physical prowess was failing him, he used an alternative – his mental skill – to accomplish this important objective. His adeptness demonstrates a true strategic perspective. Applying this lesson is relatively clear: understand your desired objective and be open to unconventional ways to accomplish it.

Strategy Lesson Two

The second strategic lesson is you don’t have to display all your capabilities all the time for them to be effective. DiMaggio relied on his “brand” reputation, with only slight real evidence, to create a larger-than-reality perception. Using this strategy lesson is more subtle. Suppose you have a brand capability that’s temporarily weakened or under attack. While it’s fine to not rely on the capability, you may still need to let others know it’s in your repertoire. If that’s the case, determine in what ways you can compensate, perhaps by taking advantage of an opportunity to mass resources temporarily and deliver better than typical performance or ward off a competitor.

This two-part sports strategy lesson can help prevent others from taking advantage of you or your brand when it really counts! – Mike Brown

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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One of this football season’s most intriguing strategy stories was the Miami Dolphins’ use of the Wildcat Offense – a variation of a 1907 Pop Warner (the coach, not the youth league) offensive formation designed around multi-dimensional, Hall of Fame great Jim Thorpe. It had last been used in the NFL during the 1951 season.

This very different offensive setup features the running back taking the snap from center and an unbalanced offensive line that causes confusion in defensive assignments. The first six times Miami used the Wildcat, it scored four times. In the first 76 Wildcat plays, they scored eight touchdowns and gained 453 yards (or nearly 6 yards per play).

And no surprise, other teams, seeing Miami’s early success, introduced their own version of the single wing offense with varying degrees of success. Even the lowly Kansas City Chiefs incorporated some razzle dazzle in their offense, with their quarterback catching a 37-yard touchdown pass in one game.

Three strategy applications of the Dolphins’ story come quickly to mind:

1. Those who know history are able to repeat it!

This example turns the maxim, “Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it” inside out. Knowing history allowed Dolphins coach Tony Sparano to repeat and introduce a play that had long ago fallen out of favor. Even though considered ancient history, the Wildcat offense was ideally suited to take advantage of his team’s skill set.

Question – Do you know relevant history in your business so you can broaden your strategic options in ways that less-studious competitors can’t?

2. Competitively, surprise can work better than rehashing today’s best practices when looking for dramatically improved results.

Surprise can have a far bigger positive impact in competitive situations than mining today’s best practices. If Sparano had simply looked for the best examples of current offenses, he might have gained some incremental improvements. It’s unlikely though that the Dolphins would have scored four times in the first six plays using a current offensive best practice. The dramatic success was fueled by something not only unexpected but unseen previously by its competitors.

Question – How are you actively cultivating opportunities to use surprise to beat competitors by intriguing prospects and capturing them as customers?

3. Surprise wears off and smart competitors respond.

If you choose surprise as a strategy, it’s only good for so long. The Dolphins’ early success rate moderated with the Wildcat offense’s more frequent use. Competitors catch up and change approaches. You have to be prepared to stay another few steps ahead and move to other surprise tactics.

Question – Before you implement a surprise-oriented strategy, ask yourself, “What are our next three or four variations or additional surprises to sustain our advantage?”

The Dolphins’ surprise-based strategy was a strong factor in their significant change of fortunes, going from a 1-15 record in 2007 to 11-5 in 2008 with their first playoff appearance in 7 seasons.

How can you use the lessons from the Dolphins’ turnaround to dramatically improve your business results in 2009?

Remember to check out the Business Exchange website Tuesday, February 17, where I’m scheduled to be the featured user of the day. Business Exchange is the new social media site from Business Week that provides networking and opportunities to upload and review content on a variety topics.

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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We’re in an annual transitional time in sports. Football just wrapped up, baseball spring training has started, and Matt Kenseth won the rain-shortened Daytona 500 in NASCAR yesterday. There was even a big poker tournament on ESPN Sunday. While there’s not a lot on sports here, this week’s articles will each touch on sports-related strategy lessons.

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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Past articles have extolled the benefits of using a PMIR (Plus – Minus – Interesting – Recommendation) evaluation, a variation on the PMI technique from Edward de Bono.

Here’s another variation to consider when using a PMIR – change the “I” to something other than “interesting.” Here are 10 possibilities for tweaking your evaluation approach. Ask, “What was most _______________?”

• Impactful
• Intriguing
• Inspiring
• Incomplete
• Ill conceived
• Inspired
• Illogical
• Impressive
• Implementable
• Informative

Changing the “I” around will freshen up your evaluation and provide some new “Insights” – yet another I you can use!

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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Need a quick injection of diverse perspectives?

Take advantage of the Q&A feature in LinkedIn. You can post questions under a myriad of topics for other members of LinkedIn to comment on, usually from their personal expertise.

Additionally, take advantage of discussion areas within LinkedIn Groups to solicit perspectives as well.

The only caveat is you still have to apply your own filters and experience to assess the input. But having used both features recently to request speaker ideas for a conference I’m helping organize, LinkedIn was a great source of quick, free input to expand our thinking!

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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Looking back over the past few days, here are several stories (some national, one personal), each with innovation lessons tied to “newness.”

A New Skydiver

This week’s story about Daniel Pharr, the first-time skydiver whose tandem skydiving instructor died during a jump, is quite incredible. Daniel, realizing that there was a problem with the instructor during the dive, manipulated the toggles on the chute to land safely even though he’d never skydived before. He tried to administer CPR once on the ground, but the instructor had suffered a heart attack during the 13,500 foot dive and died.

A New President

Amid major roadblocks on several people he’s nominated to high level positions, President Barack Obama said plainly that he had “screwed up.”

A New Taste Treat

Heading out to watch Sally Hogshead on The Today Show last Sunday morning, we went to Eggtc., a breakfast and lunch restaurant southeast of the Plaza in Kansas City. One of the specials was “Oreo Pancakes.” It consisted of two chocolate pancakes with a vanilla glaze in the middle, plus whipped cream and crumbled Oreo cookies on top.

What Are the Innovation Lessons?

1. Innovation isn’t always about “creative” pursuits; it can depend heavily on composure and the ability to improvise in real-life situations. Daniel Pharr demonstrated the importance of these skills in a remarkable fashion during a life and death situation.
2. Spend your life pursuing your distinctive talents – those that are most exciting for you. From Daniel Pharr’s account of the skydiving instructor’s last statements in the plane, it was clear he was doing what he most loved. If you have to go, that’s probably a pretty good way, pursuing your passion.
3. Mistakes are part of innovation, and admitting them is part of making them. The key is learning and improving from the mistakes so you don’t make the same ones again.
4. You can “borrow” ideas and apply them in new ways to great success. There wasn’t anything “new” in the Oreo pancakes, but I haven’t been so filled with excitement and anticipation about food in a long time. They were very sweet and very wonderful!

That was last week in innovation. I can’t wait to see what happens this week!

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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