West Coast Zen Defense
The old football saying goes “Offense wins games. Defense wins championships.” Great dynasties—like the Steelers, the 49ers and the Cowboys, won big games with outstanding defensive plays. I can’t wait to see what will happen today — the Patriots’ offense colliding with the Giants’ defense.
Similarly, Aikido—arguably the most Zen among the martial arts, fights through defense, not offense. An interesting aspect of this Zen defense is that aikidokas, without losing their internal balance, redirect the energy of the attacking opponent to their advantage. In the words of Morihei Ueshiba, Founder of Aikido, “Opponents confront us continually, but actually there is no opponent there. Enter deeply into an attack and neutralize it as you draw that misdirected force into your own sphere.”
The same skill is required of the Valley Zen warrior. In the start-up world, the offense is the great ideas. The defense is the execution–when you defend your market share against market giants and nimble new entrants. There have been many Silicon Valley companies with great “offensive strategies.” However, most of these rising stars turned out to be shooting stars because of defensive failures. Netscape, Yahoo and Lotus rose meteorically. But when a larger opponent moved into their turf, they failed to make the defensive plays. Google, Salesforce.com and nVidia on the other hand, managed to build an effective defense through great execution and enveloping and neutralizing the attacker. Like Aikidokas, these companies don’t lose their balance when the larger opponent attacks, and so are on their way to winning.
Contributors:
Drue Kataoka, Svetlozar Kazanjiev
A Zen moment! Contrary to everybody’s expectations – Defense won the championship.