Competition, Cooperation, Losing and Learning

Competition and Cooperation

Competition and cooperation are integrally linked. There is perhaps no better forum for teaching cooperation and sharing than in team competition. Key ingredients of cooperation are responsibility and discernment. Learning indiscriminate cooperation or learning cooperation in an atmosphere of immolation or subordination is more self-defeating than selfishness. Team competition depends on the successful and discerned application of cooperation.

It is perhaps less obvious, but just as true in single competition. It is a fallacy to believe that the selfish person often wins in competitions. The opposite is much more often the case.

Chess master ponders. Who are we playing against?

Competition and Losing

Everyone loses even in circumstances that are not essentially competitive. Losing is a way of life and a prevailing theme. Our reaction to losing is much more important. Losing is inter-woven with acceptance, determination, and emotional stability. The goal is not to minimize the negative effects of losing by abolishing competition. The result of that is emotional stagnation or worse, coddling, immaturity or self-righteousness.

The challenge in losing is learning the appropriate lessons. Losing provides an opportunity for self-assessment. Sometimes we are just not emotionally ready to win. Sometimes we are bested. Sometimes we have mental or emotional or physical areas for significant improvement. Losing sometimes signals that our talents lie elsewhere or conversely, teaches us the importance of perseverance. Regardless of the reason for losing, our capacity to emotionally react in positive ways to our disappointments portends our future success and well being in life more than any other. Bad losers or combatants who are afraid of losing are emotionally immature, as children are.

There is also a corollary here. Organizations can not be creative if they are afraid to fail. For in competing we will fail. Creativity and evolution by nature implies failure. It is what we learn from failure that will define our future success. Also, monopolies of either ideas (e.g., by upper management) or industries will result in slower innovation and evolution. The suppression of competition precludes any other outcome. Great coaches, who often lose, say the same things after losses regardless of whether they compete in sports, organizational or intellectual arenas. Virtually all of their responses are emotionally constructive insights into opportunities for improvement and adaptation.

Debriefing, Win or Lose

Great coaches debrief after completion of all measurable projects or competitions in order to holistically understand the lessons learned. An organizational project without measurement does not give its members their rightful chance to assess their progress.

Winning or losing without team debriefing and understanding misses an important chance to gain self-awareness and lessons learned and renders the campaign virtually useless. This is true not only because the team does not identify best practice together. Most importantly, it is not given a chance to emotionally and spiritually build on its experience.

Successful team collaboration demands shared education. Successful teams use verbal and written texts to develop spiritual and emotional unity. In this regard coaches’ actions and words speak loudly. Members of great teams tend to project the same image after wins or losses. They do so not because they have been coached regarding their comments but because they have collaboratively understood and internalized the same lessons.

References

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