The Shape of The Game We Play

A few weeks ago someone pinged me on Twitter with a very interesting comment. He said that whilst he enjoyed learning about business from biographies as much as the next person, “reading books about weightlifting doesn’t shortcut actually hitting the gym, doing the reps, feeling the movement and developing the instincts.”

This was in response to my quip that “the business equivalent of ‘a month in the laboratory can often save an hour in the library’ is ‘a decade of business experience can often save a few months of biography reading.’”

But this reader is also right, of course. There is much in business that can only be learnt by doing. I would never suggest ‘read business biography’ to someone who was just starting out. Getting actual experience is more important the earlier you are.

Business is not like weightlifting, however, and it is not like weightlifting in some very interesting ways. It is those ways that makes reading biography so fruitful.

I thought it would be useful to explore the ways in which business is not like weightlifting (or Judo, or most sports, for that matter). My response to the person went something like this (edited for