Are you really winning?
In sports, competition is the vehicle through which excellence is measured. Games or matches are a moment of truth: There is one victor to distinguish who is superior.
For a contest to work, rules must be determined—beginning with agreeing how success is defined.
Your life as a professional is painful when you work with colleagues whom you don’t share a definition of success with. Competing for and succeeding in obtaining resources, the attention of bosses—or power—creates the illusion of winning.
When, in fact, everyone is losing.
For you, this isn’t the Olympics. Nor are you a professional athlete or a politician.
You measure excellence a different way: Creating and delivering differentiated value to customers.
Where are games being played?
Perhaps it’s time to remind a cross-functional colleague: We’re not getting paid to compete against one another. (Nor are we entertaining anyone.)
What is our shared definition of success? How are we measuring excellence?
