In his book “Born to Run,” author Christopher McDougall writes: “Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up, it knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn't matter whether you're the lion or a gazelle-when the sun comes up, you'd better be running.”

Besides running, the gazelle knows the lion is the opponent. It’s not complicated for the gazelle, get up and go.

However, for some, understanding whom the opponent is can be a huge issue. For example, when Eastman Kodak was making millions easy year in profits, it never thought Apple would be its opponent.

When Blockbuster was renting videos all over the country with incredible success, it never considered Netflix would start streaming movies. When Borders was selling books at many of its locations, it never believed Jeff Bezos and Amazon was a threat to its business model. Toys R Us started in 1948 and never recognized Walmart or Target as a competitor, which forced it to close all of its stores by 2018.

If we don’t know who the competitors are, or could be, we can no longer dominate the market share or be as relevant as we want. Understanding the competition is a vital step toward staying on top. As leaders, it’s our job to see threats, near and far. Some may not look the part but may be building to become one. They have unique ideas, altering strategy and the hunger that makes start-ups successful.

To find our real competitors, we first must ask, who is passionate about what we do? Who cares more than we do? Who would benefit if we took a downturn?

Whether you lead an organization or yourself, create a list of opponents, including all of the people, groups of people and organizations that may have something to lose, directly or indirectly, if you win.

Call it the “Blockbuster List,” because if you don’t understand the competition, then you will suffer a similar fate.

Once you have your list, study their behaviors, make them part of your daily learning. Understand the how and why of their work. Label their tactics, understand their decision-making processes and determine if their methods are better or similar to yours.

Don’t assume they don’t know, don’t assume they won’t master the field, simply study, understand and then process. Through our studies, we learn the strength and weaknesses of our opponents. We learn who might be the threat today, and who might become one at some point down the road.

Former Great Britain Prime Minister Winston Churchill screamed all through the 1930s that Germany under Hitler’s leadership was a significant threat. Only no one paid attention until it became “too late.”

What we want to avoid, and why it’s vital for all leaders to study their opponents, is being “too late” to recognize the problem. Blockbuster, Toys R Us, Kodak, Borders were all “too late.”

Don’t join them.

Start your Blockbuster list today.

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