Competition fosters silence

I’m quite competitive in certain aspects of my life. Give me a basketball and I enter pro mode. I have a 19 out of 20 win streak at GoKarting - 1st place is what I focus on.

When there are two ATM machines next to each other - and I time it right that I turn up at the same time as someone else - I will race them to complete my transaction. I often say “beat you” if I win. Childish.

I compete with myself daily. I hold high standards of myself (which I often don’t meet….but that’s another story). I like to compete - and win in sports, games, fast cars and life. But not at the expense of other people.

But at work…….nada, zilch, nope, none, no no. No competition in the workplace. Never.

Why?

Many leaders and managers fail to realise that no one will say anything useful if their competitor is in the room.

Competition breeds silence.

Data is hidden. The truth rarely shows up. Deflection is the game. Politics leads the way. Facts get blurred. Opinions become the focus. People use data as a way to manipulate. Internal competition generates sketchy behaviours. Decision making starts to be based on hearsay. Its no way to run a business.

I don’t even play the game of competing against other businesses externally. Paul Hawken summed it up nicely.

“We’re not in competition with other businesses, we’re here to offer something that other companies don’t provide”

- I butchered that quote - but you get the gist.

Plenty of companies have some form of competition baked into their mission, or values, or rhetoric.

• “We’ll destroy the competition.” 
• “We’ll crush the opposition.”
• “We’ll win team of the year.”
• “We’ll be the best team in the company.”

And on and on. The corporate world is awash with competitive language, league tables, competitor analysis and perks of rank. 

We’re encouraged to be the best and beat the competition.

It’s even worse when leaders and managers foster a competitive nature between teams in the same company. 

This idea of people within the same business competing with each other stems from the belief it will foster more growth, more action, more drive, more profits, more more more. The reality is competition between teams fosters more silence. 

And not just silence.

Competition between teams causes stress and drama at work (Fletcher et al., 2008). Competition in the workplace can lead to the punishment of direct reports - if the manager’s bonus is tied to the team’s performance (Nikiforakis et al., 2019).

But more insidious and detrimental to the business is that competition fosters silence. 

Many leaders and managers fail to realise that no one will say anything useful if their competitor is in the room.

Everyone in the business is connected to each other.

When we pull in one area, we create a ripple in another. When we sell to a new client, we create demand and work elsewhere. When we have an angry customer due to a platform outage, we create a ripple in sales, support and professional services. When we ship the wrong product, someone else usually has to chip in to make it right. 

The whole business, and everyone in it, is connected to each other.  To encourage competition between teams, who should be connected holistically to deliver value to customers, is to encourage dysfunction. 

Despite having different roles and responsibilities in the business, everyone is there to serve the customer. Everyone is there to deliver value. Everyone is there to make the business better, create a positive place to work and to generate value. Competition - that fosters silence - makes this harder to do. 

When your competition is in the room, it’s highly likely people won’t say anything useful. Why would you give away any competitive advantage? Why would you hold your hand up and ask for help? Why would you reveal your real numbers, targets and goals? Some people would, but many would not. 

When competition is at play people don’t say anything useful. Updates are watermelon in nature (Green on the outside and red in the middle). I.e. Everything is fine when in reality it isn’t.

Meetings descend into people tearing apart a competitor's progress or idea (and remember, these are people we work with in the same company).

When competitors are present it’s hard for people to speak the truth, certainly if things aren’t going well. And even if they are, why would you share it and risk giving the competition something useful? This is especially so if there are limited resources on the line (bonuses, corner office, promotion, perks and rank or a single bonus (“The Innovation Equation,” 2019).

And people who compete, hide, bring down other’s ideas, discourage cooperation - they are IN THE SAME BUSINESS! It’s madness.

We’re all connected and here together to get the job done, yet I see this dysfunctional behaviour all over.

A competitive company culture breeds silence.

And this is why I suggest not fostering a culture of competition. Instead, foster a culture of cooperation. 

Cooperation doesn’t mean we have to like each other. Instead it means people must work with each other to achieve a shared goal or outcomes. This requires communication, collaboration and a lack of competition between teams and people. And of course, clarity over the shared goals.

My view is quite simple. 

Paint a bright picture of the future and align everyone around it and “force” cooperation.

This is done by having shared outcomes and goals, and an equal share in the rewards. It’s also done by removing ranks and perks and focusing on the valuable outcomes for customers. It’s done by giving feedback to those who try to compete with others and bring down the team.

It’s done by being clear about roles and responsibilities - ensuring everyone understands the role that they, and others, play in the business - and how this work connects to the bigger picture. It’s done by ensuring managers and leaders are aligned.

As a result - if you get this right, you see positive behaviours:

• People ask for help - after all, we’re all now in this together with the same goals.
• People share honest updates - after all, a failure or slow down in one area affects the whole.
• People don’t shoot down other people’s ideas - after all, we’re all here to do the right thing, not be right. 
• People come together to deliver the outcomes. 

Everyone in a business should be working to drive out competition between teams and people. This allows communication and information to flow, leading to solid foundations on which to make decisions upon.

When silence, or vague information, or straight out mis-direction are rife, you’ll find poor decisions lie ahead. 

If you’re in a competitive environment, strive to notice when people say nothing useful at all (or straight out fabricate stuff up). And work out how to reduce the competition and increase the cooperation. Setting shared overarching goals is a positive first step…after all, we’re all working in the same business together. We are all connected. We are all here to add value.