Using core values as constraints

In games, the term "play to win" means a player does anything within the rules to win the game. Win at any cost.

There is also a term, "scrub," for the person with an additional set of rules that aren't in the game, and that they follow even if it makes winning harder.

I believe it's better to be a scrub.

Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu and smothering

For the past few years, a new, quite controversial technique has been popularized in BJJ: smothering, or closing your training partner's airways by covering their face with your hand.

Smothering is one of those moves that was recently made illegal because people feel "funny" about it. It seems cheap and also disrespectful. It's like your training partner is exploiting a rule to avoid playing the game "the right way."

While it was recently made illegal in competition, a quick internet search for "BJJ smothering" shows it's still happening in training rooms – and people aren't happy about it.

Even if smothering was legal, I couldn't imagine using it in my own gym because of this "funny" feeling. It's an extra rule I'm adding that limits my effectiveness in BJJ – thus making me a scrub.

And I think being a BJJ scrub that doesn't smother is OK.

Playing to win and scrubs

David Sirlin's excellent book Playing to Win has a concise definition of a scrub:

A scrub is a player who is handicapped by self-imposed rules that the game knows nothing about. A scrub does not play to win.

He goes on to explore some examples of Street Fighter complaints from scrubs about what techniques are "cheap":

These rules can be staggeringly arbitrary. If you beat a scrub by throwing projectile attacks at him, keeping your distance and preventing him from getting near you — that’s cheap. If you throw him repeatedly, that’s cheap, too. We’ve covered that one. If you block for fifty seconds doing no moves, that’s cheap.

The first step in becoming a top player is the realization that playing to win means doing whatever most increases your chances of winning. That is true by definition of playing to win. The game knows no rules of “honor” or of “cheapness.” The game only knows winning and losing.

Playing to Win: Becoming the Champion (p. 18). David Sirlin. Kindle Edition.

Honor and cheapness are at the core of the playing-to-win vs. scrub dilemma.

Let's explore a UFC example: In the UFC, it's typical for competitors to touch gloves in the first seconds of the round.

In one fight, UFC fighter Eric Silva pulled his hand right before touching gloves and threw a punch, hitting his opponent smack in the face.

Technically, Eric Silva was entirely within the rules: the fight was on, the clock was ticking, and fighters were supposed to punch each other.

But many of us watching it would call that a "cheap shot" and say he has "no honor" by punching his opponent while pretending to touch gloves. In my home, everyone immediately started rooting for his opponent, who ended up winning the fight. Eric Silva got cut from the UFC soon after.

The UFC (MMA) is a sport, a game like BJJ, but even violent, "anything goes" sports apparently have their own set of scrub rules.

Soccer fair play

Another example is the concept of fair play in soccer. This was never put on display like in the notorious 2005 match between Ajax and Cambuur.

Because soccer players can't get medical attention while the game is playing, it's typical for players to deliberately put the ball out of bounds when a player is down so medics can come in, even if it would be to their advantage to keep playing — a scrub move.

When Cambuur sent the ball out so an Ajax player could get medical attention, the Dutch national player Wesley Sneijder intended to return the ball to Cambuur's goalkeeper, but his shot was so good that he, without intending to, scored a goal!

Immediately, all the players were a little distraught. Without hearing what players were saying, it was obvious this was a big deal. The Cambuur players were angry that Ajax scored a goal instead of returning the ball, and the Ajax players were clear that it wasn't their intention. It was a mess.

Then, something almost unimaginable happened: Ajax's players stood still in the field while letting the Cambuur players conduct the ball to offense and score an equalizer goal!

After the equalizer, what would have been an otherwise unimportant match resumed and entered soccer history. Nothing like this has happened before or since.

So even in high-stakes games, with millions of dollars on the line (more than Street Fighter, I'll highlight), top-tier athletes will be scrubs.

But are scrubs respecting unwritten rules because it helps them win, like the soccer team Ajax? Are people playing to win, not maximizing their long-term chances, like former UFC fighter Eric Silva?

And how does that all apply to life outside of sports, like in business?

Is being a scrub also the best way to win?

The late Charlie Munger, prolific investor and right-hand man to Warren Buffet, is often quoted on the importance of following strict ethical rules that are much more strict than what is legal.

The way he frames it is "we pass way, way far from the line between what's legal and illegal" – quite a scrub move.

However, Charlie Munger and Warren Buffet also say that following your own ethical rules is the most beneficial way to maximize your outcomes in investing and business. For them, you follow ethical rules because it's the right thing to do, but it turns out that it also helps you win.

Here's an example where he talks about legal but questionable business practices, and how one should avoid them even if it creates market value:

One of the most extreme examples is in the investment management field. Suppose you’re the manager of a mutual fund, and you want to sell more. People commonly come to the following answer: You raise the commissions, which, of course, reduces the number of units of real investments delivered to the ultimate buyer, so you’re increasing the price per unit of real investment that you’re selling the ultimate customer. And you’re using that extra commission to bribe the customer’s purchasing agent. You’re bribing the broker to betray his client and put the client’s money into the high-commission product. This has worked to produce at least a trillion dollars of mutual fund sales.

This tactic is not an attractive part of human nature, and I want to tell you that I pretty completely avoided it in my life. I don’t think it’s necessary to spend your life selling what you would never buy. Even though it’s legal, I don’t think it’s a good idea.

Munger, Charles T.. Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Essential Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger (p. 267). Stripe Press. Kindle Edition.

What you can or can't do to achieve your goals is something that comes up often in life, both in our personal and professional lives. We have visions, missions, and goals.

But we also have core values.

The dual purpose of core values

Both in life and in organizations, we have values or core values in addition to a vision, mission, and set of goals.

When applied this way, the first purpose of values is to ensure that people are performing behaviors that are more likely to lead the company to success.

The second purpose of core values is to constrain a company's actions to pursue its goals rather than achieve them at any cost.

Charlie Munger would argue that both purposes for values are intertwined.

While values that maximize success seem like a playing-to-win tactic, values that constrain possible moves seem like a scrub tactic. But of course, they're the same set of values.

"The ends justify the means" is commonly attributed to cut-throat businesses and business people, but it's often applied in many contexts, from our familial dealings to our ideological stances.

In practice, values constrain behavior in ways that can seem, in the short term, to clearly hinder outcomes, but they can reign in hyper-optimization at any cost of goal pursuit.

It's almost indisputable that letting their opposing team score a short-term goal hindered Ajax's chances of winning. But it had a long-term impact on the game and the team. Coincidentally or not, they're still a high-level Premier League team to this day.

In contrast, Wells Fargo was exposed in 2016 as having defrauded customers by opening millions of accounts and credit cards without their consent to achieve their sales goals.

When we have goals, several positive characteristics are attributed to those who single-mindedly pursue them: resourcefulness, grit, hustle, etc. However, some of these characteristics can lead to negative results if not constrained by core values, or when otherwise pursued at any cost.

Greg McKeown talks about an interesting example of Johnson & Johnson's decision to recall Tylenol, which caused 7 deaths in 1982, using values to help it make its decision to spend $100M:

Contrast this with how Johnson & Johnson bounced back from the tragic cyanide murder scandal in 1982.5 At the time Johnson & Johnson owned 37 percent of the market and Tylenol was their most profitable product. Then reports surfaced that seven people had died after taking Tylenol.

Fortunately for them they had the Credo: a statement written in 1943 by then chairman Robert Wood Johnson that is literally carved in stone at Johnson & Johnson headquarters. Unlike most corporate mission statements, the Credo actually lists the constituents of the company in priority order. Customers are first; shareholders are last. As a result, Johnson & Johnson swiftly decided to recall all Tylenol, even though it would have a massive impact (to the tune of $100 million, according to some reports) on their bottom line.

Mckeown, Greg . Essentialism (p. 53). Crown. Kindle Edition.

In this case, the cost of recalling Tylenol is easy to calculate: $100M. But what would be the price of not recalling it?

Those are examples of the value constraints that can help us make good long-term decisions in life, even if we're being scrubs and not trying to push the rules to the limit and playing to win.

Applying the scrub mindset

There are two essential things to applying core values as constraints to our pursuits:

1. Define clear and accessible core values
2. Use core values often and explicitly

1) Defining core values: If your core values aren't clear, you can't use them. This includes writing them down, explaining them in detail, and making them easily accessible to yourself and those affected by them: your family, your team, etc.

2) Use core values often and explicitly: Core values are only useful if you use them. While you can argue you, your family, or your team "live our values," the values are most useful when they're called out explicitly. Call out specific values when defining goals, prioritizing, and choosing how you spend your time.

For companies (but not teams), it's more common to have core values defined (#1) but not very common to call them out explicitly (#2).

So do that next time you have an opportunity:

1) Memorize your core values: Whether they are your personal core values, your company's professional ones, your team's, etc., you can only put them into practice if you know them by heart.

2) Name the core value you're using with an action or decision: Next time you're discussing your weekend plans, your evening plans, your next hobby, your team's prioritization or deciding what work to do in the day, explicitly call out the core value that is helping you choose and justify your decision.

Making values part of your day-to-day vocabulary will make you a scrub, forcing you to follow made-up rules. But that's good.

And it may even help you win, even if that's not the point.