“If we only defend, we lose the war.” — Kambei Shimada, Seven Samurai (1954)
I was incredibly lucky to play for two of the best attacking rugby teams in the world — Toulouse and Leinster. Toulouse, in particular, had a deep-rooted culture of attacking rugby, a philosophy that didn’t rely on grinding out wins through defense alone. Instead, the club simply outscored opponents, filling the trophy cabinet through relentless offense rather than by merely holding the line.
Both Toulouse and Leinster embraced a mindset of taking the game to the opposition rather than absorbing pressure. It’s a philosophy that extends beyond sport — because in business and strategy, those who rely solely on defense inevitably fall behind.
For years, the mantra “defense wins championships” has echoed through sports and boardrooms alike. But is it still true?
The phrase is often credited to Paul “Bear” Bryant, the legendary coach who famously said: “Offense sells tickets. Defense wins championships.”
Yet, recent data suggests a shift in the balance.
According to brilliant analysis by Jason Pauley, since 2017, Super Bowl champions have, on average, ranked higher in offense than defense. The 2022 Kansas City Chiefs embodied this trend, boasting the league’s top offense while ranking just 16th in defense.
By contrast, from 2000 to 2005, dominant defenses were far more common among champions.
However, today’s NFL has incentivized offensive excellence, with high-scoring teams now holding the competitive edge.
And the same applies in a changed business arena — playing it safe won’t win in the long run.
The Disadvantage of Incumbency
In an interview with INSEAD, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, the former CEO of Nokia, admitted:
“It is sometimes difficult in a big successful organization to have the sense of urgency and hunger. No company can defend only. If you have a high market share and you are a market leader, if you start defending you cannot sustain.”
Kallasvuo was speaking about Nokia in the aftermath of its decline, but the defensive posture had set in much earlier.
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In the early 2000s, part of Samsung’s meteoric rise in mobile phones came from Nokia’s reluctance to manufacture two-piece flip-phones, the design favoured by its Korean rival. In the 1990s, Nokia’s sleek, one-piece “candy bar” phones were coveted lifestyle accessories, winning design awards and dominating the market. Yet, their compact product architecture made it difficult to enlarge the display without increasing the phone’s overall dimensions.
Initially, this wasn’t a problem, but as users began sending messages, taking photos, and browsing the web, the limitations of a tiny screen became clear. Samsung’s solution — a two-piece flip-phone where the display overlapped the keyboard until the phone was unfolded — was a simple yet game-changing innovation. To Asian customers, the flip-phone was a useful but hardly revolutionary feature. To Nokia’s chief product engineer, however, it was design heresy. Having helped invent the mini-brick phone, Nokia’s head of design stubbornly defended its virtues and dismissed requests from Asian marketers to create a competing flip-phone.
By the time Nokia finally launched its own two-piece design, millions of dollars in market share had already shifted to Samsung. Nokia’s reluctance to adapt wasn’t just a product design issue — it was a classic case of incumbency weight. Success had created a mental model that made change difficult. This is a fate many market leaders have suffered — from Microsoft’s dismissal of the iPhone to Sony’s paralysis in digital music.
The Weight of Incumbency
Traditional, long-standing companies struggle to maintain the innovation that once made them great. Being an established industry leader can create a psychological and operational rigidity that resists change.
Consider Microsoft’s response when Steve Jobs introduced the first iPhone in 2007. Then-CEO Steve Ballmer dismissed it outright:
“There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It’s a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I’d prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get.”
By 2014, Ballmer openly admitted that one of his greatest regrets as Microsoft’s CEO was not moving into the mobile phone hardware business sooner. When asked why Microsoft didn’t act, his response was telling:
“When the name of your company is Microsoft and your formula works… Our formula was working, we were software guys… So for us it was kind of like a religious transformation.”
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Nokia faced a similar reckoning. At its peak, it controlled over 50% of the global mobile phone market. Yet, by the time Microsoft acquired its mobile unit in 2013, Nokia’s market share had plummeted to just 3%. The inability to pivot quickly in response to the smartphone revolution was a defining moment of corporate inertia.
Sony’s Rise and Stall: A Cautionary Tale
Sony’s story is another textbook example of how disruptors become the disrupted. Sony initially thrived by exploiting the blind spots of entrenched competitors. When Bell Labs invented the transistor in 1947, legacy players like RCA and GE dismissed it, clinging to their investments in vacuum tube technology. Akio Morita, Sony’s visionary CEO, saw the opportunity and swiftly licensed transistor technology. The result? The iconic transistor radio, which revolutionised consumer electronics and turned Sony into a global powerhouse.
Yet, as Sony matured, it fell into the same trap as its former competitors. The company became bound by its own orthodoxies — rigid assumptions that limited its ability to adapt. Nowhere was this more evident than in the digital music revolution. Sony had all the necessary ingredients to dominate the MP3 player market — brand power, digital rights management technology, and a vast music catalogue. But internal conflicts and fear of cannibalising its existing business model paralysed decision-making.
Meanwhile, Apple seized the moment. The launch of the iPod and iTunes redefined digital music consumption, leaving Sony scrambling to catch up. What once made Sony great — its deep integration of hardware and content — became a barrier to its ability to move quickly and disrupt itself.
If We Only Defend, We Lose The War
As the legendary 1954 film Seven Samurai reminds us:
Kambei Shimada: “Go to the north. The decisive battle will be fought there.” Gorobei Katayama: “Why didn’t you build a fence there?” Kambei Shimada: “A good fort needs a gap. The enemy must be lured in. So we can attack them. If we only defend, we lose the war.”
Kambei Shimada’s philosophy wasn’t just about military tactics — it was about strategy in life and business. The “gap”he speaks of represents more than a vulnerability; it symbolizes the need for constant reinvention.
A business, like a fortress, can’t simply build walls and expect to survive. Without openings for adaptation, learning, and risk-taking, stagnation sets in. The greatest danger comes when leaders believe their position is secure.
This aligns with another of Shimada’s warnings:
“Danger always strikes when everything seems fine.”
Or, as Denzel Washington put it:
“At your highest moment, be careful — that’s when the devil comes for you.”
Complacency is the real enemy. History shows that companies who assume their market position is unshakable — whether it’s Nokia, Sony, or even Microsoft — may inevitably find themselves disrupted.
Companies, like any winning team, must play offense — not merely protect what they have, but actively build what’s next.
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“In the age of revolution, there is no defense, there’s only offense. Those who live by the sword will be shot by those who don’t.” — Gary Hamel
If you want to learn how market leaders stay ahead? Check out our epic 18-part series with Gary Hamel below.
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You Can’t Win by Defense Alone: The Disadvantage of Incumbency was originally published in The Thursday Thought on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.