Rigging the Game by Dan Nicholson

Author:Dan Nicholson [Nicholson, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: epub

The Commissioner Frame looks at our business as if it’s a team we own (in a league we also own) and asks: “Does this align with what I want in business? Would I be willing to play by these rules in perpetuity?”

To explain the Commissioner Frame, I want you to think about the commissioner of a sports league. This is the person who sets all the rules and principles by which the game is played, and therefore, the spirit of the game itself. That’s the really vital piece—the spirit of the game or its intention.

I’d venture a guess that a lot of us aren’t huge fans of playing games with too many rules. If we have to spend the majority of our time tending to regulation after regulation, we’re probably not having much fun. We lose the enjoyment that comes with participating, competing or even winning. But some rules are necessary and, in our businesses, we are the commissioner who gets to determine what those rules are. How do we set parameters that keep the spirit of the game alive and enjoyable?

The fact is, we do tend to forget to look at business as a game (and it is). We need rules and we need principles, which are two different structures, by the way. Rules are the hard-and-fast boundaries you don’t cross, and principles are more akin to guidelines. Put another way, if rules are a stop sign, principles are the lane markers you stay between as you drive.

And it can be easy to overcorrect one way or the other, to put in too many rules for yourself and your business and find yourself feeling drained and stressed, or to lay off the rules and suffer losses of productivity, morale and relationships.

Even the NFL deals with this type of balancing act. Maybe you’ll remember when it banned celebrations by players for things like touchdowns. Well, that’s not much fun, so the league threw that rule out to preserve some of the inherent joy in the sport. It’s all about balance. Though it seems counterintuitive, having some structure in your business, or rules of the game, allows you to compete and operate in ways that you enjoy.

The Investor Frame

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