Is it the Teamwork, or the Competition?

After one of the closest, most exciting Grey Cup finals ever, I agree with the words of Montreal Alouette's cornerback Davis Sanchez, "It sucks that someone had to win or lose."

I don't think anyone can come away from Sunday's 2009 Grey Cup final without a lot of respect for both teams and for the games they played. A cheap mistake cost the Riders the victory in the last seconds, but both teams demonstrated excellence, passion, heart and determination. "Did we deserve to win? Yes. But they deserved to, too," conceded Alouette's quarterback Anthony Calvillo.
 
What is it we like about sports so much? Is it about winning and losing, or is it about working together to pursue excellence? Do we paint ourselves green and wear watermelons on our heads because we love structured competitions where only one team can win, or because we love teamwork and cooperation and working together to achieve a common goal? Can we even separate the two?

In business, do we strive for excellence as a team, or do we approach everything as a competition?  Is our daily work about beating the other guy, or about working together to achieve excellence? Should we structure our organizations based on competition, or based on cooperation?

For many, there is no conscious thought given to this question. We automatically pit our employees against each other - for rankings, performance ratings, and raises. We create departmental silos and pit them against each other for budget and resource allocations. We preach teamwork and then set our people against each other with individual evaluations and rewards. We try to win in our negotiations with suppliers and customers, to beat them down. We create and defend our empires, because we measure ourselves based on the size of our empires, rather than the success of our organization.

It surprises most people to learn of the research that has been done in this area. The evidence from studies of sports, business, academics, psychology and human behaviour show quite conclusively that structural competition promotes achievement LESS WELL than cooperation. By any measure, even business earnings, competition is less effective than cooperation at achieving results. And, the more complex the problems are that you are facing, the more of an advantage there is to cooperative and collaborative approaches.

We watch the Grey Cup and we think that the competition is what we enjoy, but I'll argue that the reason we love sports is because we love teamwork. We love the camaraderie, enjoyment and achievement that results from working together for a common goal. We love being a part of an excellent team effort. The Grey Cup game was excellent. The ending felt shallow, unsatisfying and almost unecessary.

The best part of sports is cooperation. The best part of business is the same.

Go Riders!

(Swift Fox and PMI are presenting "Striving to be Less Competitive" in Regina, Jan 21, 2010)
(Swift Fox and SATA are presenting "Striving to be Less Competitive" in Saskatoon, Jan 26, 2010)