KWAME

Playing the game on the field can help you launch a new business, raise a fund, get an idea funded, and more. The same game could leave us writing off our investments, shutting down our business, or even putting pensions at risk. I got the term from Bill Gurley who outlines in this piece the importance of recognizing the signs of a bubble and thinking critically in navigating herd behavior. Why exactly can it be dangerous to play the game on the field? And what do we do about that? Cultivating our intuition and rooting ourselves in data come to mind as two ways to navigate the danger. I’ll work my thoughts out in this piece and see where that takes us.

The Risks in the Field

In a recent podcast, QED Investors co-founder Frank Rottman talked about his frustration over the course of the past couple years at the price investors were paying to invest in startups that hadn’t really built anything. Yet, at the end of the day he had to give in to the game that was being played on the field.

Why is this dangerous? Playing the wrong game potentially leads to all sorts of bad effects. It puts the pensions of teachers, firefighters, and nurses at risk as LPs assessed high-performing Black-led funds more harshly than their White-led counterparts, subsequently missing out on investment opportunities. Employees face layoffs because company leadership got distracted by shiny objects and lost discipline. Venture capital firms are not able to raise their next fund because their portfolios have too many companies that aren’t a business. Startups cannot raise money at the price they used to be able to because they built a solution looking for a problem. Playing the wrong game can be dangerous.

A Case of Shifting the Field of Play

You don’t have to play the game on the field. Greg Alexander, founder of Collective 54 tells a great story in his book, The Boutique, that models another option, shifting the field of play. The owner of a bookkeeping business developed a new outlook on life after beating cancer and wanted to sell his company. In other words, he decided he was playing the wrong game. He could have taken the logical path, played the game on the field, and sold to a large bookkeeping business.

Rather than going this route, the investment bankers he hired noticed that a lot of his customers were registered investment advisors. Interviews with these firms revealed the strategic importance of handling their clients’ bookkeeping. This revelation enabled the bankers to position the bookkeeping business for a bidding war and successful sale, enabling the owner to ride off into the sunset.

It’s hard to prove the counterfactual here, but I imagine if he had gone through a process selling to a larger bookkeeping firm, he would not have been perceived as nearly as strategic and likely would have received a lower multiple. What helped make this happen? The owner responded to the shift in his mental state and got wise counsel around him, the investment bankers. Those investment bankers rooted themselves in data.

Those two principles, cultivating intuition and rooting in data, set the stage for key things that I believe help to determine whether we’re playing the right game, and to shift the field of play if we determine we’re not playing the right game.

Cultivating Intuition

At some level, it seems to make sense to play the game on the field. That feels like the safe thing to do. The reality is that we can design safety for ourselves. That comes from cultivating our intuition. There is an internal and external component to that.

On the external front, scripture tells us that in the multitude of counsel there is safety. It is critical to have a real strong team to help you check your decisionmaking. I started learning this at Davidson College where my ambition and ego met Davidson’s academic rigor, and I took a good licking. In a conversation with Paul Brunson, I shared how I have been curating a circle of people to tell me the truth about myself and my thinking ever since I took that licking.

On the internal front, there are some key questions to ask to determine whether we have the systems in place maintain mental strength. Am I praying? Am I meditating? Am I sleeping? Am I exercising?

These two components are what I have found critical in keeping me from caving to anxiety or making rash decisions. When I do make mistakes, it usually tracks to my slipping in checking in with my community or maintaining my wellness disciplines.

Rooting in Data

Years ago, Chenae Edwards, introduced me to Steven Covey’s concept of “keeping the main thing, the main thing.” I love the work I have gotten to do at Deloitte, spanning customer strategy and innovation, because of the intentionality in starting from the needs of the end user, or the customer. In my context, they are the main thing.

Instead of making decisions based on charisma or a seemingly good idea, do we know what keeps our end user up at night? Do we know what their journey is accessing their healthcare benefits? Do we know what prevents them from keeping one of their chemical plants running smoothly? I have to constantly exercise the humility required to listen to and observe my target customer, then commit to focus on serving them. That humility and focus serves as a powerful anchor when shiny objects appear that could distract me from the main thing.

Playing the right game requires a commitment to cultivating my intuition and rooting my decisions in data. This looks like keeping wise counsel around me, maintaining my wellness. It also looks like using data to keep the main thing the main thing. The danger of playing the wrong game lies in distraction, our ultimate goes, and the people we are supposed to be serving. Here’s to building the disciplines that will keep us mindful of the game we’re playing, and provide us the strength to shift the field of play when we need to.