A colleague recently wanted to know what I would do to “thwart” (man, I’ve always wanted to use that word, “thwart”) a competitor who, and in her opinion, was just waiting for her new product launch so that he could steal her ideas and launch his own, competitive product.

“This guy in known for doing this”, she said, “And he is also known in my industry for his unscrupulous methods.”

Satchel Paige, unquestionably the greatest baseball pitcher never recognized by white America once said, “Never look back … for someone might be gaining on you”.

Come to think of it, old Satch never once said that he was talking about baseball, now did he?

Hey, I’m not advocating turning a blind eye towards competition. To the contrary, we do have to keep a wary watch on our competitors at all times. (Was it not Ronald Reagan who once said, “We must judge our enemies not by their intentions, but by their capabilities.”?)

But when you are in business, competition (failing ownership of a very airtight patent or copyright, and I’ve seen very few of these in everyday entrepreneurial start-ups) is “de rigueur”. That there is competition for market share is simply a “fact of life”. People see the same opportunities that you see, and generally they react to exploiting those opportunities in roughly the same way that you would.

But do you obsess about them, as our caller seemed to be doing?

The answer is no. First of all what good does it do to worry about things over which you have absolutely no control? If the competition is going to compete, and so long as that competition is, “within the white lines”, what is it that you can possibly DO, anyway?

Second, excessive worrying about your competition sends a baaaad message to your employees and their families. (I always marvel at how little stock a business owner puts into understanding the “home climate” of each of his or her workers … this is why it is smart to both ask about “the home front”, and also include the home front in periodic company messages, such as newsletters … for do you think that employees simply go home and never talk about “the office”?)

Because if you are worried, what then must they be feeling? After all, you are the “Captain”. Any anxiety or fear on your face is multiplied ten fold on theirs whenever they speak to one another.

And so I say, “Let Your Competitors Worry About YOU”. And you do this by leading the pack … but getting out ahead and staying there. Just like a Formula One racing team. Let your competition see your tail lights, and never your hood!

And this is do-able … in our caller’s case, the marketplace was completely unsettled. In other words, the race had not even yet begun. So, her strategy is to employ what is often called the, “First Mover Advantage” (another – yuck – vestige of the high-tech era). First Movers are those to show up first in a virgin market space. And because they are first, they “set the rules” … both in terms of defining the parameters of that market, as well as in setting up the overall rules of play (pricing, service features, and so forth).

Having FMA is very powerful competitive advantage to its holder. Companies with FMA can virtually race into “open turf” and stake out their territory almost unfettered. Thus, companies having FMA are able to take on and defeat competitors who are many times larger than them.

Of course, FMA doesn’t last forever, and so practitioners of this approach need to consolidate their positions and continue to innovate.

And this in turn requires energy, dedication, and maniacal focus on the goals at hand. Which then means that not one ounce of energy should be used “looking back” --- either at current competition, or at your own, previous decisions.