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            There are only two business strategies:

                        1.      Offer something no one else can offer 

or

2.      Do something better than anyone else

The first is called “earned monopoly advantage”.  The second usually is based on “cost effectiveness”.  The first is a unique talent or skill that no other company or individual has; the second is a knack for executing a process, or producing a product better than the competition. 

That is all there is to strategy in business.  It can be made very complicated, but it still comes down to one of those two strategies, or to both. 

It also should be a guide for anyone making a choice in education.  A talent is not something you own.  A talent owns you.  It is usually obvious to others before you become aware of it: A pleasing singing voice, athletic ability, mathematical skills, an instinct for choosing the right colors, or harmonies, or fabrics, or words.  All of these are candidates for a monopoly advantage.  Or for excelling in a chosen profession or field.

 I remember once teaching a classmate the game of chess.  Much to my surprise and annoyance, he beat me in the second game we ever played.  Many years later, my daughter and I were standing at a respectful distance when he was playing for the Norwegian championship in chess – he was already then an International Grand Master at the game.  He was playing on a stage under a spotlight, but he noticed us in the crowd.  He rose, and walked over to us.  He told my daughter: “It was your dad who taught me how to play chess…”

My talent for chess was limited, especially compared to his.  He could play a dozen people at the same time in his head, and usually beat them all.  Such a talent is rare.  But most everyone has a talent for something, and it is such a joy to find it, and to practice it.

We all know the stories about the beginnings of great companies.  Like Earl Bakken and Palmer Hermundslie tinkering in a garage in North Minneapolis, and eventually producing the first heart pacemaker (that very same invention later saved Earl Bakken’s life when a Medtronic pacemaker was installed in his chest).  Or Bill Boeing deciding to repair his damaged airplane in Seattle. 

I think any company can become great!  It starts by that company doing something better than any other company.  And then building on that skill, and evolving it into something no one else can offer in the market place.  Finally, making that organization a culture of innovation, and change, and a joyful place to work. 

Like Mrs. Frőlich in Bergen, Norway.  I rented a room in the house of this aging, aristocratic woman who lived with her housekeeper in the center of town. 

She would doodle on accounting paper left behind by her deceased husband, filling in squares on the paper with colors from a box of crayons.  What emerged from the doodling were beautiful patterns that she wanted to have made into sweaters.  She contacted the wives of sailors, living in remote places along the rugged Norwegian coast and asked if they would knit the sweaters that she had dreamed up.  They agreed.  And they got together with neighbors for knitting parties. 

Mrs. Frőlich then contacted shipping lines that were always interested in selling hand made goods to their passengers.  Soon a thriving business in sweaters, caps and mittens emerged from the doodling of a talented, elderly lady who just kept flunking retirement time and time again. 

On my last visit with her, my old room was stacked floor to ceiling with boxes of knitted goods ready to be sent out to dozens of stores, cruise ships and private individuals.  She was a bit overwhelmed by all of this success, and I could see the stress in her face, and hear it in her voice.  We sat down and discussed simple things like storage, and fulfillment functions, and her plans for the future. 

I had spent four years in Bergen studying how business should be properly executed.  Mrs. Frőlich knew little about supply chains, distribution or finance.  Her eyes glistened when all the headaches of her work seemed to disappear by the formulation of a simple plan.  A strategic plan.  A vision of how she could continue to design and invent, and make this world more beautiful, more artistic, and more colorful. 

She is gone now.  But her designs are everywhere.  This week, when a cold wind from Canada swept in over Minnesota, I put on a sweater that was the product of the imagination of this tall, gray haired lady in Bergen, Norway, who did not know that accounting paper and a box of crayons could make this world a warmer and more beautiful place.