Revenge

You will be attacked. From both inside your organization and outside the arrows will fly. It will hurt. You will probably be afraid. The fear will reflect a realistic possibility of failure.

How should you respond? Jesus taught, “But I say to you, do not resist one who is evil. But if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.”

Business is primarily a creative endeavor. You create products. You create relationships. You create value. Revenge replaces a positive focus on creativity with a negative focus on destruction.

Even the less emotionally-charged concept of retaliation should be approached with care and considerable restraint. Michael Porter, a strategist with Harvard Business School, writes:

Every firm is vulnerable to attack by competitors. Attacks come from two types of competitors – new entrants to the industry and established competitors seeking to reposition themselves… A well implemented offensive strategy constitutes the single best defense against an attack by a challenger. A firm that continuously invests to gain competitive advantage by improving its relative cost position and differentiation will be difficult to challenge successfully. (Competitive Advantage, page 482)

According to Porter there are only two kinds of offensive strategy: Cost and differentiation. There are important similarities in how to approach a differentiation strategy and how to engage in a persistent search for tsedaq. Here is how Porter describes a positive strategy of differentiation:

A firm differentiates itself from its competitors if it can be unique in something that is valuable to buyers. Differentiation is one of the two types of competitive advantage a firm may possess. The extent to which competitors in an industry can differentiate themselves from each other is also an important element of industry structure. Despite the importance of differentiation, its sources are often not well understood. Firms view the potential sources of differentiation too narrowly. They see differentiation in terms of physical product or marketing practices, rather than potentially arising anywhere in the value chain. Firms are also often different but not differentiated, because they pursue forms of uniqueness that buyers do not value. (Competitive Advantage, page 119)

The true self is not a superficial quality; it is an aspect of personality that has deep and abiding value. The true self has meaning in community. Tsedaq depends on Mishpat. When an authentic, meaningful, and sustainable differentiation is achieved the community of both customers and competitors can benefit, even as the firm establishes a clear competitive advantage.

With such a well implemented offensive strategy and its resulting competitive advantage, retaliation is seldom required and anything close to revenge would be a waste of energy.

In most cases, an attack should simply encourage continued persistence in execution of your current strategy. Turn the other cheek and keep going.