TransCompetition

Moving Beyond Competition and Collaboration

Harvey Robbins, Michael Finley

Publisher: McGraw-Hill, 1998 , 251 pages

ISBN: 0-07-053082-3

Synopsis:

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TransCompetition: A new way to compete - and succeed - in the collaborative marketplace

In today's marketplace, what really work — hard-driving competitiveness or friendly collaboration? Neither, says experts Harvey Robbins and Michael Finley. In this wake-up call to the business community, the award-winning team that gave us Why Teams Don't Work outlines a groundbreaking new concept in management style called transcompetition. An innovative combination of the best tactics of combat and the new spirit of teamwork, transcompetition can help transform your business practices far more effectively than anything you are doing right now. The new business philosophy of transcompetition is grounded in ideas and strategies that can help you:

• Understand where negative competition arises in your organization and what you can do about it — and what you can't do
• Break the pointless cycle of slash-and-burn that vanquishes enemies without improving the bottom line
• Reach a new level of continuous winning -- one that is possible only when organizations stop their internal and external bloodletting and get on with the business of expanding markets and satisfying customers

Applying transcompetitive concepts to your business can help you understand the nature of your corporate culture and of yourself — and turn that knowledge into highly effective strategy for long-term growth without losing that important competitive edge.

Table of Contents:

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• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• A World of Losers
  Cracks in the wall of a powerful theory
• The Competitive Sandwich
  We're caught in the squeeze between good and bad
• The Realm of Connectedness
  Things that go beyond competition
• Not-So-Great Stuff about Collaboration
  Why "teamwork" can't solve every problem
• The Big Vague
  The catastrophe of supercollaboration
  
• The Pyrrhic Fallacy
  The unbearable cost of winning
• The Brute Cycle in Action
  Fighting back against supercompetitors
• Belling the Bullies
  The relative magic of exchange, encircle, and exact
• New Ways of Winning
  Naming the transcompetitive habits
• The Joy of Cannibalism
  And other rites of natural connection
• Fugues and Variations
  Other factors in competitive style
• Competition and Culture
  How it varies from people to people
• The Mirage of the Beagle
  Supercompetition is never "Nature's way"
• The Burgeoning Brain
  Why "rationality" doesn't work
• Mythic Faces
  The Brute, the Trickster, the Hermit, and the Pawn
• Assessment Tools
  Finding out what you and your organization are
• Transcompetition in Action
  Applying the assessment information you just obtained
• The Fruit of the Pineapple Tree
  Grafting the transcompetitive habits
• Borrowing from Minneapolis to pay St. Paul
  Competition and teams
• Dead Men and Headmen
  Leading a team of competers
• Pain and Partnering
  Why intercompany teaming seldom works
• Red Rover, Red Rover
  Linking arms with one's enemies
• Competing with Employees
  More tales of corporate cannibalism
• Swallowing the Hand That Feeds You
  Competing with your customers
• The Sign of the Scorpion
  Competing with shareholders
• Global Economic Warfare
  Competitivness between economic regions
• The Flight of the Billionaires
  An unlikely source of transcompetitive thinking
• The New Art of Unknowing
  Why exchange, encircle, and exact works
• The Synedephia Story
  The future of competition
• Pop Quiz