The BIGG Successs Show
Get in the Loop to Gain a Competitive Advantage
A military strategy you can use for your business. Find a written summary of today's show at biggsuccess.com.
Welcome to The Big Success Show. Today, we'll discuss getting in the loop to gain a competitive advantage. The Big Success Show with George and Mary Lynn. Planning is certainly important to set your direction. Analysis is necessary, but a lot of people take it too far. At some point, you just have to do it. And we're going to share a concept today developed by U.S. Air Force Colonel John Boyd called the OODA loop. And we actually have a link to a Wikipedia page about him and then also a link to his book which discusses it more. It's a military strategy that is useful in business as well. OODA is an acronym for Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act. And Mary Lynn, I thought you said we were doing a show about the hula hoop. This is the OODA loop. Yes, it's a duchess. Hula hoop. Yeah, I can't hula hoop. Can you? Well, nobody wants to see me. When you gain an advantage, if you work through the loop faster than others, that's particularly true in today's highly competitive, rapidly changing business world. So let's explain this more. We're going to break our discussion down into two parts. Yeah, the first part is simply this, just get in the loop. The four processes in Boyd's model are all overlapping and interacting. That's why you gain such an advantage by getting in the loop. Yes, you move through the loop. You constantly receive new information, feedback that you don't get if you never act. You're able to use that feedback to adapt. And that's what gives you an advantage. You know things that the analyzers haven't discovered. Yeah, you can't know everything before you make a decision. You can conduct surveys, interviews, focus groups, any number of other things. But they're all speculative. They're all conjecture. They're all hypothesis. You're asking people what they would do. You're not observing what they do, do. Did I say do? You said do, do. When you take action, you get real facts. You get hard evidence, things that you only get by taking action. Which leads us to our second point. It's action that creates the advantage. Nothing happens until you take action. Now that you have, you start gaining information that others don't have. The others who are still analyzing the situation. And obviously by taking action, it's not guaranteed that you will succeed. However, you do have the opportunity to learn from your mistakes. And that education gives you a competitive advantage over those who aren't yet in this game. That's part of the process. So get in the loop and do something even if it's wrong. Hey, I can do that. Coming up, an example of how to use this in the business world. Today we're discussing the OODA loop and we've discussed how these loops work. Let's now look at a real simple example. Mary Lynn, take it away. Alright. You're in business. You spot an underserved market. Customers want something that your competitors don't offer. You start gearing your organization in that direction. You decide on a strategy to penetrate that market and then you do it. Now while that's going on, your competition is catching up. But the thing is, you're there first. So you're learning things about the market that they don't know yet. You have new observations which you use to tweak your strategy to maintain your competitive edge. That's pretty simple. It's very simple, but it works. Exactly. You can help your friends stay in the loop. Tell them about big success. We're at B-I-G-G success.com. That's also where you'll find a written summary of today's show and those links to the OODA loop for more information on that. Let's get our big quote for the day. Our quote today comes from Ari De Goose. Mary Lynn, I may have said that wrong. You may be Ari De Chicken. I don't know, but Ari De Goose. The ability to learn faster than your competitors may be the only sustainable competitive advantage. So jump in the loop, so you stay in the loop, and gain the upper hand. Next time we'll talk about four tips that can lead you to a million dollars. A million dollars. I'll take it. Until then, here's to your big success. Come. [MUSIC]