Many executives struggle to empathize with competitors' mindsets due to common biases:
• Status quo bias limits innovation needed to meet changing customer expectations.
• Overconfidence bias leads to blindspots that open the door to disruptive threats.
• Resource bias makes it harder to respond to scrappy competitors tapping unmet needs.
• Experience bias constrains imaginative thinking needed to envision new possibilities.
• Insular culture bias discourages outside perspectives required to understand customers.
• Priorities bias obscures customer jobs-to-be-done that competitors can better serve.
• Failure bias means missing warning signs of disruption until it’s too late.
This critical blindspot restricts strategic vision and prevents companies from maximizing opportunities. It manifests in strategic oversights, reactionary responses, and missed growth trajectories.
At C Webster Consulting, we immerse ourselves in competitors' perspectives to surface intelligence and turn it into actionable insights. We truly get into the minds of our clients competitors and provide actionable competitive insights to win more clients, grow customer base, and boost revenue.
Leaders must be self-aware and proactive to overcome empathy blind spots. Surrounding themselves with divergent voices and focusing on discrepancies between projections and reality fosters accurate competitor assessments.
The bottom line is that a lack of executive empathy becomes a strategic liability. The winners of tomorrow will embrace competitive insights from analyzing data using a diverse perspectives including looking at the world from their competitors lens which will ultimately keep their strategic ahead of the game.
How often do you look at the market from the lens of your competitor? Join in the discussion.
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