...when the world has to play on Goliath’s terms, Goliath wins.
When underdogs choose not to play by Goliath’s rules, they win, Arreguín-Toft concluded, “even when everything we think we know about power says they shouldn’t.”
What goes unsaid, though, is that in order to accomplish a David-vs-Goliath type of victory, a would be David has to either be very lucky, or know Goliath's rules really well, and choose wisely which one to break . Why? Because even David can run out of time and resources while trying to break every rule in Goliath's book.
== an example of a destruction problem: attack interfaces and communications (distribution) rather than individual (strong) elements of the system.
4 comments:
Hi Eugene,
very interesting post by Gladwell, and my comment will not break your point at all, but I agree with this post (http://coachingbetterbball.blogspot.com/2009/05/not-fooled-by-malcolm-gladwells-full.html) that discusses the appropriateness of the example for those of us who really like and -try to- understand basketball.
Hi Justo,
I do realize that this particular way to play basketball has its limitations. It relies on the availability of lots of "disposable" players. It will definitely not work for somebody who wants to become an elite player. But at a high school amateur competition level it can be extremely successful, because the vast majority of kids there are not going to NBA. Furthermore, this disruptive method is much better suited for their physical and social development than the traditional skill-oriented training. The kids has to be able to work hard, run fast, play as a team, and learn how to win. That's all.
mmm... but this is related to the idea you commented in a previous post about "ethical" innovation, isn't it? In amateur level, where learning skills is more important than just winning, some tactics (or, "innovations") should not be used in order to learn other stuff during competition.
I think in this particular case, the girls had no chance to become basketball stars. Therefore, the important skills they learned had nothing to do with basketball. To summarize some of their accomplishments: they dramatically improved their physical conditioning, figured out a way to play as a team, and experienced success when nobody expected them to win.
From my usual "functional" approach, they got more than they originally hoped for. And since the coach did not promised them that they would become great basketball players, I don't see any ethical problem here. The innovation delivered as promised :)
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