My wife and her father often play Dr. Mario, an old eight-bit Nintendo game. In this game, each player starts with a number of “germs,” each one of three colors: blue, red, or yellow. The goal of the game is to eliminate all of the germs from the screen. To do so, you must either stack up (vertically) or line up (horizontally) four blocks of the same color. The blocks are actually pills; some are all one color - most are half one color and half another. They come in any combination of two of the colors above. Players can move and flip the “pills” to get them lined up or stacked properly to eliminate the colored germs with same color pill (or half-pill). The pill’s and germs disappear when four or more of one color are lined (or stacked) up.
What is interesting about this is that when playing in two-plater competition, it is possible to “plop” on the other player by arranging your pills so as to make more than one line disappear with one move. The other player will have two (or three, or four!) “half-pills” drop down at random on his/her side of the screen. These plops generally land in inconvenient places and are inconvenient colors.
Why am I giving you a crash course in Dr. Mario, you ask? For this reason: The competitive style of playing the game is uncanny in its parallel to entrepreneurship and business. Stay with me here…
Business is competitive by its very nature. So the competition aspect of Dr. Mario draws an obvious similarity; however, there is much more! Due to competition in business, there are constant “plops” in your business from your competitors… these “plops” are neither convenient nor avoidable - they happen no matter what you do. They are totally in the control of your competition.
Now it gets truly interesting. What you do and how you react to these “plops” often determines your success in the game… just like in business and entrepreneurship. If the “plops” distract you from your ultimate goal of eliminating germs, your competition will beat you in short order. On the same token, if you ignore the plops and play as if they aren’t happening, you’ll also get beaten. To win the game, you have to change your actions to take the plops into account while always keeping the germs in mind. If you can eliminate the germs while dealing with the plops, you have a good chance of winning. By the way - sometimes the plops are actually beneficial. Just like in life, luck plays a role.
My wife consistently wins at the game… often she wins three rounds straight - “skunking” her opponent. She also regularly comes from behind after being ruthlessly “plopped” upon. She is a master of adjusting her actions and strategy based on the reality of the game - always focusing on the end goal of eliminating the germs.
We need to do the same in business - focus on our goal, but always see the reality of our situation. Only a combination of the two will lead us to success so we can “skunk” our competition.
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