When in their 1982 recording of The Girl is Mine Michael Jackson famously cooed to Paul McCartney, "I think I told you, I'm a lover not a fighter," he recast his physical weakness into a moral strength.  In the Playmaker's system, the King of Pop covered in one sound bite the principle we call Fit and Friction.

• FIT:  To agree, resonate, harmonize, go with the flow
• FRICTION:  To disagree, provoke, be dissonant, go against the grain

Lately, in the hyper-competitive IT industry, high-fit players are running their own recasts for similar reasons.  Take note of IBM CEO Sam Palmisano, who this week declared at his Think Leadership Conference, “You have to see [your]self as not only a competitor, but a broad collaborator.” It was lofty feel-good and high-fit talk, all to escape what the Big Blue chief sees as a "bone pile" of tech failures and fights, perhaps also to distance himself from the untamed and un-timid CEO Larry Ellison of archrival Oracle.  Here, to wit, was Ellison on the same day crawling through a conference call phone to put a finer point on his disgust for resellers (er, collaborators) of other companys' intellectual property:

"I don't care if our commodity X86 business goes to zero," said Ellison.  "We don't make any money selling those things. We have no interest in selling other people's IP..."

• FIT:  Sam Palmisano, lover and practitioner of agreeable recasts and challenges
• FRICTION:  Larry Ellison, fighter and ninja master of baits and preempts

The question of course is, which works?  Fit strategies that elevate and separate?  Or frictional plays that engage and compete?

The answer for now is arguably Friction.  It's Ellison and Oracle that today are dictating the tempo, timing and tenor of the Big IT conversation.  Not Palmisano and IBM.

The reality in free markets is that when a player has a competitive advantage, it will assert it.  And depending on so many factors and variables, the player will press its superiority onto rivals with care or caustic zeal or anything in between.

Palmisano is not without competitive advantage, but he loses head-to-head to the likes Ellison because of business models, offerings and culture.  And so, for now, he plays the lover through thoughtful and adult commentary.  Ellison, of course, sensing advantage and being more Niccolo Machiavelli than Miss Manners, plays the fighter through less mature means, but for obvious effect and control of his market's collective mind and mouth.

With the unceremonious departure of HP CEO Leo Apotheker, watch now for Ellison to run high friction plays on his other rival's new chief, former eBay CEO Meg Whitman.  You can almost hear him humming...The Girl is Mine.

Post by Alan Kelly

Photo credit: www.beatlesbible.com