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5. What Traditional Business Thinkers Need to Understand 

Traditional business thinking often focuses on products, services, and markets. It provides structure, predictability, and clear metrics, but its limitations become evident in rapidly changing, dynamic environments. Game thinking challenges this perspective and introduces a new, human-centered, dynamic framework.

Practical Changes

  • Markets are no longer predictable:
    The speed of change, AI, platforms, and new roles make old market-focused thinking a bottleneck.

  • Value creation moves into the game space:
    Customers, teams, partners, and algorithms form a value creation network where the market is just one view.

  • Proactive and offensive strategies become essential:
    Traditional "defend your market share" thinking is insufficient. Organizations must adopt dynamic, experimental, and learning-oriented approaches.

  • Need for new metrics:
    Old KPIs are not enough. Game spaces allow measuring expected value, role impact, and success of transitions.

Practical Recommendations for Transition

  1. Map your game space: Identify key players, roles, and possible transitions to the next S-curve.

  2. Experiment boldly: Let teams and customers try new roles and resources within the game space.

  3. Measure dynamics: Use expected value (xV) and internal game metrics instead of relying solely on market data.

  4. Iterate and learn: Game spaces constantly evolve; learning and adapting are strategic advantages.

  5. Encourage organization-wide participation: The game model is not only for early adopters; it enables others to innovate and engage in dynamic value creation.

Summary

Unlike traditional business thinking, the game-based model emphasizes people, roles, and dynamics. It helps explain why the market may only be temporary and how real competitive advantage emerges from mastering the game space and transitioning to the next growth curve.

With this new thinking, organizations can anticipate change, experiment with new roles, and build value creation that would have been impossible under old models.