Simulate the adversary’s response to your move

Assign someone to genuinely think and plan as your competitor, not just describe them.

Why it works

Strategy is often planned against a passive competitor — a static snapshot of what they are doing now. Real competitors adapt: your move changes their optimal response. Simulating their response forces you to model their incentives, capabilities, and information, which reveals whether your strategy holds up against an active, intelligent opponent rather than against the idealized plan in a vacuum.

How to do it

1. Assign one person or small group to represent the competitor with genuine commitment — they are the competitor for the session.
2. Give them information about the competitor’s actual situation, capabilities, and incentives.
3. Let them develop a real response to your announced strategy, without being constrained to polite or charitable interpretations.
4. Use their response to identify which parts of your strategy are actually robust and which depend on the competitor doing nothing.

Evidence

Perspective-taking and simulation of other agents’ decisions is studied in negotiation and game theory. Red-teaming as an adversary simulation is standard practice in military planning, intelligence analysis, and increasingly in competitive business strategy, though controlled outcome evidence is limited. (clinical)

Evidence is mostly from domains where red teaming is mandatory practice (intelligence, security) rather than from controlled comparisons. Transfer to corporate strategy is principled but not empirically confirmed.

Common mistake

Simulating a polite, slow, or irrational competitor that confirms the original plan rather than genuinely engaging with how a rational, well-resourced adversary would respond.