Competition Doesn’t Have To Mean Conflict – Jocko Willink

competition is a fundamental aspect of international relations as state non-state actors seek to protect and advance their own interests they continually compete for the advantage okay so that’s what everyone is doing am i paranoid i might be i might be i might be a little bit paranoid people are competing people are maneuvering and that’s what we’re doing right that’s what that other company is doing that’s what that other department is doing that’s what that other country is doing they’re maneuvering what are they doing that for they’re doing it to further their own interests now going back to the idea of alignment this also falls into agendas right because if dave is trying to make some maneuver inside of our company and i’m trying to make some maneuver inside of our company as long as those maneuvers still get us to the point we want to go to i don’t care we’re good with it we’re good with it we’re fine so people trying to advance their own their own interests most of the time is fine as long as they’re not undercutting the strategic goals that we have but people are always competing they’re always making that little move some people a little bit more obvious than others and here’s what you gotta watch out for what you gotta watch out for is when people have an agenda that helps them but it doesn’t move you in your strategic direction that’s what you’re watching out for what you’re watching out for is when dave and his department hey it’s great when dave and his department are trying to get money so they can get more funds so they can hire more people so they can grow so they can get a bigger production and they can move us toward the strategic goal of growing our business that’s all good dave is literally competing to get more money for his department so he can grow his department which will help him create more income so our whole business moves forward that’s great but there’s a chance that dave wants to you know set up uh he wants to set up a an office in happens to be 0 2 miles down the road from his house happens to be in a building that he owns happens to want to charge a certain amount of rent we don’t need anything in that area but he’s doing it for himself that’s what we got to watch out for and i’ll tell you when you’re making those maneuvers for yourself everybody sees it you think you’re smart you think you’re getting away with it you think no one notices you think you think oh you know what well i do own the building but it’s really a great spot nobody believes you nobody believes you so don’t do it don’t do things for yourself interests that undermine that aren’t aligned with the strategic goal whenever i get somebody that i can’t figure out quite why they’re doing what they’re doing well dave what do you mean why would explain to me why you want this building there again why you want to put an office there well i’m telling you there’s a really a good market and dave we’re already in that market we can control this other area yeah but it’s uh you know i think it’d be really good for the company okay well tell me it would be good well you know we could we could have some offices there i don’t know i understand what what you want to do why is it good so when i when we can’t when i can’t understand why it is you want to do something there’s a chance i need to say wait a second is dave doing this for some reason some agenda that is not for the good of the organization is he competing against what we’re doing because that’s a problem and i’ll see through it every single time and so will everybody else it’s so obvious man it’s so obvious nations and other political actors pursue their interests constantly and in a variety of ways competition results when the interests of one political group interact in some way with another group these interactions take place in a dynamic environment each move each move an actor makes towards fulfilling an interest changes that ecosystem any interaction of interests changes the situation as well so what does that mean we got to track that ooda loop right because every move you make or every move your competitor makes makes everything a little bit different competitions are often labeled as zero sum or positive sum zero sum rivalry means that if one group achieves its goal then the rival group cannot achieve its own a good example of zero-sum competition is when two nations struggle over the ownership of an island in most cases only one of them can physically control it at a time positive sum means that more than one group can make progress towards fulfilling interests or achieving goals at the same time for example two nations may compete economically but both may see their gross domestic product increase simultaneously that’s what i think we commonly refer to as a win-win situation which i love which i love i prefer we don’t want to do zero-sum we want to say oh i don’t want to i don’t want to do something to dave’s division that shuts his division down i want him to win and i want us i need to win that’s fine positive why is it positive why is it positive it’s positive because i’m not just thinking tactically i’m thinking strategically and if what i do right now is burn dave and burn his efforts to the ground what is dave going to do in two years in five years or in 10 years he’s coming back at me now are there times when you have to do scored earth policy yes there are most of the time you don’t have to most of the time it’s better to build than destroy competition manifests itself in several ways such as when one actor attempts to impose its will on the other another way is when one actor acts to frustrate another’s plans preventing them from achieving their goals think of when these little things happen to you think of when you feel that someone like wait a second why is echo why is this another roadblock why does that go why hasn’t he done this little task yet what’s going on well guess what sabotage is what’s going on trying to frustrate the goals both of these mainly apply to zero-sum struggles in a positive sum example two economic rivals will try to best each other like when they try to increase their market share in a particular industry at the expense of their rival while both of their economies grow so that’s fine competition especially at the nation-state level is complex and it is systemic for example auto manufacturers in the united states compete with rival companies isn’t this interesting dave as often as we talk to businesses and and i’ve also i’ve often well i’ve not often but i’ve talked about this before what came first the military learning from industry or industry learning from the military because it goes back and forth it’s like a continuous cycle so here we are in the marine corps manual that they just released and what do they use for an example not a war example they use a business example the marine corps uses a business example for example auto manufacturers in the united states compete with rival companies in the european union and japan but this does not mean the us government is also in direct competition with these governments even though the auto manufacturers are based in their respective territories indirectly the auto manufacturers may lobby their governments asking them to take actions that favor their company in the global competition for auto sales the individual actors are intertwined and interact with each other in many different ways the details of this brief example are less important than it is for marines to understand so there’s an example but here’s what you gotta understand strategic competition among international political actors is multi-layered and networked each competitor consists of many parts that interact in complex ways as we see from these examples competition and cooperation can co-exist and competition does not need to lead to conflict so there’s all so many factors at play and that’s on a national level but there’s so many factors at play in the way you talk to someone else the way you treat somebody else and the facial expressions that you make you