Five Lessons for Corporates from Game of Thrones

I became a Game of Thrones fan because of my wife and later started liking the series due to its relevance to our personal lives and also to corporates. Attending the first Marketing Unconference ( see explanation at the end of the article) in Asia organized by the Philippines Marketing Association, which was under the theme of Game of Thrones prompted me to write this article. As all of us are not following Game of Thrones, I have based this article on key quotes by certain characters. It mainly revolves around basic tips on Marketing and Strategy development, which can be learnt from this fantasy drama TV series produced by the HBO cable network, based on the novel series A Song of Ice and Fire, written by George R. R. Martin.

1) Find your Unique Value Proposition

Most organizations struggle to identify the Unique Value Proposition which is also their competitive advantage. This not only applies to organisations but also to people. Building this unique value proposition takes a long time and is a gradual process. However everything that we do in building this competitive advantage, results in the reputation we build in the market. This unique value proposition can be further described as Customer Value Proposition (CVP) and Employee Value Proposition ( EVP) which articulates the purpose of the organisation and be useful in strategy development.

A Resource Based View would be the best approach for strategy development as the organisation would initially look at the Tangible and Intangible resources they own and see how unique these resources are.

How unique these resources are can be analyzed using VRIO attributes. We should ask the question whether the Resource is Valuable, Rare, Inimitable and Organised to capture value, which will determine whether the Resource or Capability is unique or not. (Figure 2 - VRIO framework adopted from Rothaermel’s ( 2013) ‘ Strategic Management’, p.91)

Having unique resources and capabilities will ideally create a competitive advantage and will mold the strategic direction of the organisation. If there are insufficient unique resources/ capabilities the organisation will have to develop strategies to build the Unique Value Proposition.

After taking stock of the Unique Value Proposition it is important to wear it like armour, with pride. Over time this armour will become the reputation that you build in the industry which will safeguard you from competitive attacks.

The value proposition will explain “What” you do and “How” you do it. But not “Why” you do it. Translating this Value Proposition to “Why” you do it will make the difference. This is the organization’s purpose. Organisations with a purpose would have more committed employees who will conquer territories and win battles because they understand “Why” they do it. An example from Game of Thrones is the speech made by Tyrion Lannister at the Battle of the Black Water when King Joffery leaves the battlefield, leading to a loss of morale amongst the King's Landing defenders. His following statement rallies troops around him.

Quote: “Don't fight for your King, and don't fight for his Kingdoms. Don't fight for honour, don't fight for glory. Don't fight for riches, because you won't get any. This is your city Stannis means to sack. That's your gate he's ramming — and if he gets in, it will be your houses he burns, your gold he steals, your women he will rape. Those are brave men knocking at our door. Let's go kill them."

Many organisations forget the real purpose which move their employees to win battles. We are so busy with achieving budgets and going behind KPIs without addressing the purpose which will motivate people to achieve these KPIs. That’s how Tyrion Lannister, being a dwarf, rallied people together to defend King’s Landing.

2) Strategy Beats Numbers

Resources will always not help you win battles. It is how you use these resources that matters. Despite having all the resources there are some organisations that do not innovate, learn from mistakes and respond to disruption. These organisations will sink with all the heavy resources they have.

Battle of the Black Water on Season 2 is a very interesting battle where Stannis Baratheon attacks King's Landing and almost breaches the city, but is defeated by combined Lannister- Tyrell reinforcements and forced to retreat to Dragonstone. Stannis Baratheon's fleet had 200 ships, including 30 sail vessels. They outnumbered the royal fleet 10-1, indicating that the royal fleet had only 20 ships. Stannis's troops outnumbered the defenders of King's Landing 5-1, but we don't know the precise numbers.

Stannis Baratheon’s strength

Baratheon, having outnumbered the Royal fleet and Army still couldn’t win the battle. King Joffery’s troops sent a single ship with a flammable substance and ignited it with a flaming arrow, resulting in a tremendous explosion that obliterated most of Stannis's fleet.

This can happen in the Marketing Battle field as well. You might have the biggest distribution network, the highest market share, long history, most number of awards accolades, etc but remember these alone will not help you to compete in today’s competitive marketplace.

3) Show, don’t tell

Your reputation is what you build. You will be perceived by your actions and not by what you say. Therefore, showing your customer that you care for them is important than catchy advertising slogans. A small incident of poor customer service can blow out of proportion in today’s social media age. Hope you can remember a passenger being violently dragged off a United Airlines regional flight at Chicago which was shared widely on social media.

Managing all customer touch points is very important as a lapse somewhere can break the whole system down. Managers are too busy trying to build reputation, using digital platforms, where they forget to focus on delivering the promise. Consumers today don’t believe what organisations promise. They believe reviews and discussion forums, which contain comments of ordinary people. Priority therefore should be to get the house in order and start delivering customer value, than blowing your own trumpet.

Apple, for example, inspires their customers to think differently by coming out with inspired solutions with all their innovative products. They have built an organisation culture which drives an innovative mindset and an Architecture which supports to deliver this brand promise. Therefore Reputation, Innovation and Architecture play a significant role in building Distinctive Capabilities which will help win battles and conquer territories.

4) Live up to the promise

Moment the brand promise is breached, the organisation loses its credibility and will in turn affect reputation. Many organisations breach this trust for short term gains which is not worth. As mentioned earlier, people tend to disbelieve what many companies say. We talk a lot about ethics and morale, principles, but very few marketers actually keep to these promises. If you are selling a good product, in the first place, you should be able to buy it. You should be able to recommend this product to your own family. Some Marketers cannot do this, as they are well aware of the unhealthy and unhygienic practices used in manufacturing the product. Therefore living the promise is important.

5) Learn from your mistakes

In the process of building a great organisation one cannot avoid mistakes. It hurts your performance, kills your motivation and puts you under pressure. But these failures are the best of learnings one could have as you know exactly what went wrong and why it went wrong. This is fine as long as you do not repeat the same mistakes again. This is common to the battlefield as well. The architecture of many organisations are built based on closed silos, which does not believe in collaboration and knowledge sharing. That is why we should study the company structure and various links within the organisation to see how best we could remove this Silo effect encouraging cross organisation collaboration. Knowledge Management therefore plays an important role

Knowledge management (KM) is the process of creating, sharing, using and managing the knowledge and information of an organisation. It refers to a multidisciplinary approach to achieving organizational objectives, by making the best use of knowledge. This will ensure that mistakes made right across the organisation and in different other subsidiaries is shared with each other, so that the same mistake is not repeated.

Nonaka postulates four modes of “knowledge conversion that are created when tacit and explicit knowledge interact”. Socialization ( tacit to tacit) “is the process of converting new tacit knowledge through shared experiences in day-to-day social interaction”. Externalization (tacit to explicit) is a process whereby “tacit knowledge is articulated into explicit knowledge… so that it can be shared by others to become the basis of new knowledge”. Combination (explicit to explicit) is a process whereby “explicit knowledge is collected from inside or outside the organization and then combined, edited, or processed to form more complex and systematic explicit knowledge… The new explicit knowledge is then disseminated among the members of the organization”. Internalization (explicit to tacit) is a process whereby “explicit knowledge created and shared throughout an organization is then converted into tacit knowledge by individuals… This stage can be understood as praxis, where knowledge is applied and used in practical situations and becomes the base for new routines”.

Conclusion

The main purpose of this article is to extract few important learnings from Game of Thrones for corporates. These tips will help organisations to win battles, conquer territories and claim the throne of market leadership. The writer’s opinion is that building an Army which believes in the purpose that they fight for is crucial to win battles. Only then would your soldiers fight with all their might. This requires strong leadership, a strong commitment and an innovative culture, which fosters imagination. This would lead the organisation to unconquered territories and transformational growth.

Note: An unconference is best described by various experts as an “Open Space conference” or participant-driven meeting. (The writer is a visiting lecturer for Marketing and Business Management and has over 12 years of corporate experience in diverse industries such as Apparel, Retail, Manufacturing, Transportation and Logistics.)