Miracle on ice

What do you do when you go up against a hockey team that’s faster, stronger, more skilled, and filled with professionals?

You create the youngest team US team in history.  Fill them with amateurs. And implement an unconventional strategy that likely will fail, but just might win.

In the 1980 Olympics, the US team defeated the heavily favored Soviet team in what’s called the “Miracle on Ice.”

In the business world, all start-ups go up against competitors with more money, employees, and experience.  Since everyone works hard, you can’t outwork the competition. Everyone is bright.

So what do you do?

The only advantage is to innovate.  And innovation involves risk. Risk that the plan will fail.   Risk that you’ll look silly.  

If the plan seems doable by well-meaning, intelligent people, people would have already tried. 

Traditional strategies would spell doom for the US Olympic team.   Traditional strategies would spell doom for start-ups.

How are you mixing traditional and innovative strategies in your work?

Thanks for caring!

With gratitude,

Anwell Tsai