Conflict and Competition
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
I recently read an interesting article in Entrepreneur called Conflict in the Workplace. It got me thinking about how so many of us in the self-development field try to eliminate all conflict and competition from our lives.
In reality, this is simply not going to happen. People don’t work that way. And that isn’t a bad thing. Conflict and competition come from, and ignite, passion. Whenever you have a group of people who strongly believe in different ideas, a conflict is going to occur.
I for one don’t want conflict out of my life. I want to be around passionate people. I want to be someone who believe strongly in his ideas, and I want to be around people like that. I don’t want people who just agree with me. I am weaker for that. I need to be around people who will challenge my ideas, who will present their own, who will prove me wrong. Out of that conflict, better and stronger ideas will come.
What we really need to do is make sure that conflict is handled in a positive way. We need to make sure we never make it personal. Honorable men can disagree, as they say. We also need to make sure that when we disagree, we still listen. Nothing positive can come out of a conflict if we do not listen.
Competition can also be very healthy, so long as it is not a zero sum game. What I mean by that is if someone wins, someone losses…you only win by taking something away from someone else. Obviously a completion is going to result in someone winning, but the goal should be to make sure that “losers” in the competition also win (just maybe a bit less).
To give you an example, a company I used to work for would set up a contest where whoever had the most investments in a month or quarter would get something like a limo ride, or tickets to a ball game, a jacket, or something like that. This company helped people set up retirement investments. They would sit down, work with them to figure out their goals and dreams and help them set up a plan to get them there. Very often they would sit down with someone who had nothing set up, and that family would walk away feeling much better.
The family they sat down with got security and a plan to get where they wanted to be. The rep who sat down with them made some money. The rep who helped the most people (and also made the most money) got some recognition. Who lost in this equation? Only the people who didn’t compete.
That is a perfect example of how you should view conflict and competition. See the benefits and find ways to make it a positive for everyone involved.
Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically to your feed reader.
Comments
No comments yet.
Leave a comment