No More Dodgeball!
An Imperative for Workplaces Besieged, Beleaguered, and Bombarded

How we play matters.
Great products are not designed in isolation.
Great businesses are not run in silos.
Great outcomes are not created by just one party.
Yet, the implicit rules in business today reward individual contribution and avoidance of blame
rather than collaboration and risk-taking. These rules promote a game of corporate dodgeball—
where we collectively lose.
Let’s reinvent the rules of business so the new norm is that we play to win (and win repeatedly).

Each of us is, like it or not, part of
the corporate dodgeball problem.

Let’s Look in the Mirror
I have some bad news: we are the problem.
It’s not “them,” not the guy down the hall
or in the big office upstairs. It’s “us.” Do
you recognize yourself in these examples?
Have you ever stared at a crack in the Q u i c k T i m e ™ a n d
d e c o m p r e s s o r
a
a r e n e e d e d t o s e e t h i s p i c t u r e .
ceiling rather than taking on some issue
you were aware of? Perhaps you told
yourself “everyone already knows,” or
perhaps you felt you wouldn’t be heard if
you raised an issue.
Have you ever tucked away or shaved off relevant data, or sugar-coated issues, as solutions
get passed up the chain of command? Perhaps you even viewed the issues as just a bunch of
“unnecessary details.”
Have you ever allocated only 20 minutes for a major strategic discussion that would set the
course of something really important? Do you fail to allocate time to talk through issues because
you “have a schedule to keep”?
We fail to use our voices, our intellect, and our wisdom to help the businesses we work in. We hold
back. We skip the necessary debates. We limit discussion, choosing to focus on getting things done,
not doing the right thing. This must stop.

The Co$t: We Fail to Win
There is an invisible price to this game of corporate dodgeball, and we all pay it.
We think that solving the company’s problems is not our responsibility. We say, “It’s above my pay
grade,” or “It’s not my job,” or “Someone else surely owns this,” and we move on. But what does
that mean in real life? It means there is a gap in the organization and if it doesn’t get fixed, your
paycheck is going to suffer. That’s right, yours.
Only 5% of us understands our company’s strategy.
Not only do many of us shirk responsibility for the outcomes at our companies, but we often don’t
even know where the company is going. Research shows that only 5% of workers understands their
company’s strategy.1 Only one person in twenty is prepared to answer, clearly and realistically, what
his company is doing and how his individual efforts contribute to it. That means 95% of us are
relying on what others tell us to do, rather than knowing what to do on our own.
The cost of all this is that we fail to win in the marketplace. Even if we get lucky once, we don’t
know how to win repeatedly. That’s an unnecessary tax, and one we can overthrow.
1
Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton. 2000. The Strategy-Focused Organization. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Ending the corporate dodgeball game
requires three new rules.

Rule #1: Each of Us Becomes a Co-Creator
Each of us must go from being an individual
contributor without responsibility, authority,
or the power to raise our voice, to a co-
creator for the future.
A co-creator is an advocate, champion, and Q u i c k T i m e ™ a n d
d e c o m p r e s s o r
a
a r e n e e d e d t o s e e t h i s p i c t u r e .
lobbyist for the creation and adoption of the
best ideas to help the company win.
It’s not about the title, it’s about an attitude.
Being a co-creator does not mean I do
your job. Or that you do mine. Instead, we
watch each other’s backs as we design our future of success, but then each of us owns our part.
Accountability is shared in the thinking and more discrete in the doing. We slow down to think, and
move faster to create the outcome.
From everything we know, competitive advantages today are not owned by just one part of the
company; they are baked into the whole organization. That means companies need to work across
department boundaries and organizational silos. It’s only when companies do this that they are
able to set direction and make the tough choices that make them unbeatable. When each person
is able to go beyond tending her “piece” of the puzzle and take on the whole view, the pieces
combine to create a competitive advantage. To make this happen, we need to change how we
behave toward one another.

Rule #2: Leaders Shift to an Unhero Role
The very thing that makes good leaders valuable often biases them toward a “smartest guy in the
room” approach to strategizing. The self-confidence and competitiveness that got them into their
leadership role makes them believe they are smarter and faster than others. But you know what
happens when leaders act like that—like a “chief of answers”? It makes everyone else the “tribe
of doing things.”
We need to move away from having “superheroes” in the business. There’s one goal for all
of us: repeated wins. It’s not one big “hail Mary” kind of win, it’s the ability to win time and time
again. When leaders empower others to create solutions, they empower the organization to
grow exponentially.
We often think of the leader as the guy with the
cape, but we forget about the full superhero team.
Batman was not the only character who saved
the day; Alfred got all the gizmos and sounded
the alarm so Batmanknew what to do.

Rule #3: Reward the “Students of the Game”
The reason we don’t take full charge of
challenges? We are afraid of failure. More
specifically, we are afraid of being blamed for
failure at our companies. Better to have only
fingers on the issue rather than a firm grip, just Q u i c k T i m e ™ a n d
d e c o m p r e s s o r
a
a r e n e e d e d t o s e e t h i s p i c t u r e .
in case. Because we fear the downside, we avoid
signing up completely. It’s like the Bermuda
Triangle of accountability.
But, we can change this. Leaders can enable their
teams to take appropriate risks by letting people
turn failure into a learning opportunity, so that failure is no longer the “career death move” that it
is today. And they can reward the risk-takers.
That will let each of us become students of the game who say, “I will try; I will stretch. I may fail,
but I will learn what will make this company more successful.”
Let’s bring failure into the room. If we don’t value and accept failure in our business, we will never
get people to take full responsibility for success.

When we play by these three collaborative
rules of business, we end the game of
corporate dodgeball (hooray!)
More importantly, we all play a game
that creates great value.

The future is co-created.
The secret sauce of a winning organization is a
critical mass of people committed to a shared
outcome. Through collaborative rules, we go
from “I designed it and they do it” to “We know it,
we create it, we own the outcome.” Business then
becomes as much a conversation of the heart as a
meeting of the minds. When we come together to
solve a problem, we’re creating more than a team,
we’re creating a business force. We’ll deal with the
tough issues, even when they are unpopular! We’ll
call them out, deliberate on them, discuss the problems that matter, and ask, “Can we?”, “Should
we?”, “Will we?”… until we come together to a solid, resounding “Yes.”
And success will come from this. Because everyone co-owns success.

The New How Movement
The New How shares processes to do strategic planning everywhere in the organization. It also
defines the key behaviors people need to bring into the process. This manifesto focuses on the
people underpinnings that cause businesses to fail. If you want to know more about the business
processes to take advantage of a collaborative culture to innovate faster and strategize to win, then
you’ll be interested in the New How.

Create (Co-Own) the Movement
Send this along. We want to change the rules of business and eradicate corporate dodgeball.
Help by sharing this with five people to raise the discussion inside firms. What we’re talking about
orative Strategy
through Collaborative Strategy
Creating Business Solutions
usiness. In her highly
ovides insightful,
isn’t easy, but it is a necessary change. (Thank you for your courage.)
solutions to problems
oach the “New How.”
Continue the conversation. Dialogue with me on Twitter @nilofer. Change happens when
lofer Merchant,
under and CEO of
bicon, Inc., is a leading
thority on creating
siness solutions through
llaborative strategy.
r unique approach
s proven effective for
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many people engage in ideas. I hope you’ll join me in changing the game of business.
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lofer has won multiple
wards for her insights
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nking and innovation.
e lives and works in
Buy the #newhow book. Read it. Share it.
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Tell me how I can help. Let me know if I can come talk to your organization, trade show, club,
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association, etc. to help share these ideas.
A bit about me: My name is Nilofer Merchant, and I’m CEO of a company that helps other
companies find and win markets. I want to help many businesses reach better outcomes. I work
Buy the book
with some of the best technology companies in Silicon Valley. I know that when those companies
succeed, it’s because they are playing by the three rules I’ve named. When I see the larger
business community struggling, I want to help it address its new reality. We’re going to create
Become a fan and experience more downturn by doing what we’ve always done. Let’s wake up and shift how
on Facebook we do business. I’ve written a book on collaborative strategy that I hope transforms the business
landscape. Business strategy typically has been planned by corporate chiefs in annual meetings,
and then handed to managers to carry out. In The New How, I show corporate directors, executives,
and managers that the best way to create a winning strategy is to include employees at all levels,
helping to create strategy they not only believe in, but are also extremely invested in making real.
No More Dodgeball! | ©2009, Nilofer Merchant. All rights reserved. | nilofer@rubiconconsulting.com