Garry Kasparov was the youngest person to become a chess world champion when he defeated Anatoly Karpov in 1985 at the age of 22. After retiring from the chess world he entered politics. For a time he opposed Vladimir Putin in the race to become President of Russia. While he was playing chess he became recognized as a master strategist. Mr. Kasparov was rumored to be able to see moves 12 steps ahead of his opponents. In today’s business world many strategic discussions bear a striking resemblance to this approach. Rather than seeing 12 steps ahead, however, Mr. Kasparov always played from an aggressive stance.

Attacking can be broken in 2 categories: (1) direct assault, (2) maintaining the initiative, a more sophisticated concept, means creating the reaction, being at the front to see what’s happening and having better control of environment, opponent gradually loses ground, leads to a direct attack that cannot be defended against. Initiative once you have it becomes an obligation, you must attack or the position will turn against you. You offer your opponent a chance to counter attack.

Most business people are familiar with the concept of direct assault, and this is also the most easily defended against. What requires additional consideration is the second item, “maintaining the initiative”. Mastering this can lead to a more intuitive approach to strategy. As with all strategic processes you first begin by understanding the environment around you. Do you already control the initiative? Are you a market leader? Do you have a unique product? Or do you need to seize the initiative? Are you a latecomer to the market? Is your product becoming commoditized?

If you hold the initiative, your strategy needs to consider how to protect your position. A great example of maintaining the initiative is found at Apple Computer with the iPod. Upon introduction the iPod become one of the hottest selling technology products ever. Not only was it in demand by the market, but also it was the target for all Apple’s competitors. Rather than resting on the success of this product, the people at Apple developed successor products, like the Nano, the Shuffle, and the Video, not to mention the iPhone. Some might have been concerned this would detract from sales of the original product. Instead this aggressive approach to product development allowed Apple to maintain the initiative. Their competition was too busy reacting to their moves and was unable to take an offensive stance.

In business best attack is always pre-empt. (When) an opponent, competitor, rival, is under pressure (he) is most likely to make a mistake. Pressure is the best way to get results. There are no perfect decisions. The attacker’s advantage comes to those who are not afraid to trust their decisions, comes from having the courage to fail. Failure is acceptable and inevitable as long as you are not content with it.

If you need to seize the initiative you must be creative and learn how to disrupt your opponent’s advantage. Nintendo’s Wii provides an example of seizing the initiative. Nintendo had lost the video game console wars. Sony and Microsoft had moved far beyond Nintendo in computing power, as well as the flash and dazzle of their games. As they approached the unveiling of their new products, Sony and Microsoft continued down the road of higher resolution graphics, higher game speed play, and more of what had put them on the top of the heap. In Nintendo’s research they realized there was a large untapped group of people who were more interested in ease of use and playability then in hi-resolution flash and dazzle. The most brilliant part of this strategy was that through reducing the focus on Hi-res graphics and fast game play they were able to keep their product affordable. They identified an un-served part of the market, they developed a disruptive product, and they soundly seized the initiative.

Taking a step back and looking at our own worlds, where do we have the initiative, and where do our competitors hold it? If we do not hold the initiative, how can we seize it? What can we do to re-define our market, and lead us to a stronger position? If we do have the initiative, what are we doing to drive forward and keep our competitors off-balance?

The biggest danger of success is assuming you will always have control of the market and remain on top. When you make important decisions are you doing what you want, or are you reacting to competition? This is the easiest way to identify who defines the rules and has the initiative. Beware the gravity of past success. Success can blind you and hold you back. Mistakes of inaction are harder to deal with then mistakes of action. At least you can learn from action. Inaction can be habit-forming, and yet all action begins with having courage - the courage to take risks, the courage to fail, and the courage to try again.

Courage is essential in every walk of life, beginning with courage to make up your mind. … fear leads to slower decisions. Decisions to take on big ideas, big challenges, do not require any more physical efforts than the small ones. Have courage to think big, go on the attack, the way to overcome fear is to trust our instinct, our potential, our self. “

Seizing and maintaining the initiative or competitive advantage does not guarantee success, it merely positions us to be able to make decisions in the way we would like to make them. After all, that is the essential goal of strategy.