On the whole, South Africans are a sports-loving people.  Each weekend, tens of thousands converge at stadiums throughout the country.  At the same time, millions are glued to their television sets, absent-mindedly drinking beer and eating biltong, totally absorbed in the activities on the sports field.  When the teams we support win, we experience a sense of euphoria; when our teams lose, some of us go into a mild depression.

Most people see this national obsession with sport as a healthy escape from the banausic experience of everyday living.  And so it is.  Sport, more than anything else, has the ability to unite a nation; to bring about a feeling of national pride that transcends race or religion.  When our national team wins we are proudly South African, as was so clearly evident in 1995 when our rugby team became world champions.

However, life is not a sport, and success in life is not a diversion.  As much as we may enjoy the competitiveness of teams who confront one another with the express purpose of one of them winning, this is not a paradigm for business or for life.

The problem

In our society, it has become the norm to think in terms of competitiveness.  Businesses perceive themselves to be “in competition” with others.  Companies set up incentive schemes to ensure that employees compete with one another for a sought-after prize.

At home, parents instil in their children the idea that they must be at the top of their class, or in the first team of their chosen sport, or at least a prefect – if not head boy or girl.  Every father or mother wants their Johnny or Suzy to shine on the playing field, which is why children’s sport takes on the seriousness of a terrorist attack when our little ones are sidelined or kept on the bench.

Having a spirit of extreme competitiveness becomes very debilitating when the sole purpose of participating in an event is to win. Why? Because if winning is everything, then when you don’t win you will feel a loser. And the truth is that nobody can win all the time.  Even the greatest athlete on earth can only be a winner for a short period of time.  Soon enough someone else will set a new record, or do things quicker or better. And what then? Does our athlete now become a loser?

To illustrate just how a destructive a highly competitive spirit can be, I’d like to share with you a rather tragic case.

Some time ago I received a phone call at about 6:00.  The caller was sobbing and incoherent for a while.  Eventually I recognised him as the director of a company that I had been doing business with. I will name the caller Edward (names have been changed to protect the identities of people). He pleaded with me to come to his house immediately, as he couldn’t cope with what had happened. I took down his address and raced to his house.

Upon approaching my destination, an ambulance rushed past me, siren blaring. I could only conclude that something terrible had happened to Edward’s wife. I was wrong. It was his daughter.

Edward had a gifted daughter.  At the time, she was 18 years of age and was writing matric.  Her name was Jean.

Edward instilled in Jean, since she was a little girl, the mistaken importance of being number one.  His favourite quotation came from the words of world famous American football coach Vince Lombardi who said, “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing”.  And so, throughout her life, Jean competed with others in a bid to win, and she was highly successful.

Jean was the top student in her school, with a consistent record of having attained six distinctions during each year in high school.  She also excelled on the sports field with colours in hockey and tennis.  In addition, she was selected to represent her province in hockey and was appointed Head Girl.

Jean’s competitive disposition was such that if she couldn’t rise to the very top in any endeavour, she simply avoided it.  Edward told me that Jean never did anything for pure enjoyment. Everything was a contest. And she considered herself to be a failure if she didn’t win.

The day before the tragic event, Jean had written a mathematics paper for her matric examination.  That night Edward came home late from the office, and immediately proceeded to his study to work on a major presentation that was due the next day.

Shortly after, Jean knocked on Edward’s door and asked if she could speak to him.

“Not now, I’m busy”, he replied.

“But Dad, it’s important”, said Jean.

“Listen Jean, I can’t talk to you right now. I’ve got to get this presentation done”.

“But Dad …”

“Didn’t you hear me?  I said not now.  You’re disturbing my train of thought. Get out of here!”

Jean retreated to her room and the next day Edward found her dead in the bath. She had slit her wrists and was lying in a pool of her own blood. Next to the bath was a short note in which she wrote:  “Please forgive me Dad, I didn’t make it in maths this time and I can’t live with myself.  I love you”.

The previous day Jean had written a difficult mathematics examination. She thought she did poorly and felt an absolute failure.

Jean couldn’t cope with the possibility of “not winning” because, after all, “you’re nothing unless you’re number one.  Nobody ever remembers who comes in second”. In this frame of mind a gifted soul terminated her life.

It is the desire to win at any cost that frequently motivates abuse and wrongdoings.  Consider, for example, the story of Ben Johnson.  Johnson was a Canadian athlete who set a world record for the 100 m in 1987.

On a blistering hot day in Seoul, on 24 September 1988, Johnson sped past archrival Carl Lewis to win the 100 m race. A subsequent drug test revealed that Johnson had used a banned substance, and his gold medal was withdrawn.  Upon further questioning, Johnson admitted steroid use. Consequently, his 1987 world record was also revoked.

Chastened, Ben Johnson returned to the athletics scene determined to stay away from drugs.  Unfortunately, he performed poorly.

Because Johnson was no longer winning without the use of drugs, and because he felt compelled to win at all costs, he reverted to taking steroids once more.  In 1993 Johnson was banned for life for testing positive again.  So ended the athletic career of a highly talented sportsman.

Yet another example of the futility of being obsessed about winning may be seen in the events that took place between former world champion ice skater, Tanya Harding and her team-mate Nancy Kerrigan, an Olympic bronze medallist. Both women were selected to represent the USA at the Winter Olympics in 1994.

On January 6, 1994, Kerrigan was badly injured by an assailant. She was seated in the stands after a practice session, when a man ran towards her and smashed her right knee with a metal pipe.  Later, they discovered that the attacker was Tanya Harding’s former husband, Jeff Gillooly.

In the court case that followed, Gillooly accepted a sentence of two years and a fine of $100,000 in return for a guilty plea.  During his testimony, Gillooly told officials that a month before the assault, Harding conceived the idea of injuring Kerrigan and approved a plan to prevent her from competing in the Winter Olympics. The reason was that Kerrigan had become a significant threat to Harding’s chances of winning the coveted gold medal, and so had to be eliminated from competing.

Court proceedings found Harding guilty of ordering the assault. She was stripped of her national championship title and banned from professional skating for life.

In business, a compulsive need to win drives leaders to engage in unethical, destructive, and even criminal behaviours, because the focus of attention is diverted from meeting customer needs to crippling or destroying the opposition.  This situation is clearly demonstrated in the scenario played out between British Airways and Virgin Atlantic.

Richard Branson launched his “fun” airline, Virgin Atlantic, in 1994.  Branson was determined to give passengers an experience not provided by carriers such as British Airways and other airlines.

At first BA laughed at this young upstart, who thought he could upstage the best in the business.  However, BA’s derision turned to despair when passengers moved to Virgin Atlantic in droves.  At Virgin, passenger comfort was more important than compliance to a set of rules that were not customer friendly.

Instead of addressing passenger needs, and providing improved, value-added services, BA chose a different path.  They decided to eliminate Virgin by engaging in a series of corrupt and underhanded practices, aimed at destroying the reputation and viability of Virgin Atlantic.  These strategies are documented in a book entitled “Dirty Tricks” by award-winning journalist Martyn Gregory. Here are just a few of the tactics employed by BA:

• Targeting Virgin’s routes to specifically slash fares on those routes;
• Attempting to block Virgin Atlantic’s access to new routes (The Chairman of BA, Lord King, withdrew British Airway’s annual donation to the Conservative Party in protest at Virgin’s entry into Heathrow and the granting of landing slots in Japan);
• Withdrawing co-operation on safety and engineering matters;
• Spreading anti-Virgin rumours in New York;
• Hacking into Virgin’s computer and impersonating employees to obtain sensitive data;
• Luring people onto BA flights by fraudulently employing agents to meet transit passengers coming off Virgin flights with the news that Virgin’s connecting flight had been rescheduled, and their seats transferred to BA;
• Illegally obtaining the names of Frequent Flyers (by hacking into Virgin’s computer system) and calling on these people at their at homes, offering them incentives to switch to BA.

The fraudulent practices of BA were so diabolical that they were given code names such as “Mission Atlantic” and “Operation Covent Garden” to cover-up wrongdoings.

In the end, justice prevailed, as it usually does.  The Chairman, Lord King resigned, and a London court ordered BA to pay Virgin $945,000 in damages and pick up court costs in the region of $3 million. However, the real cost and damage done to BA, arising from the negative publicity and loss of trust in the airline, cannot be calculated.

One could cite many thousands of examples of how a highly competitive spirit, with the compulsion to win at all costs, has ruined reputations, relationships, careers and businesses.  Suffice it to say that when winning is everything, losing is certain.

The solution

If a driving need to win inevitably leads to failure, what is the solution? Is it appropriate, or even acceptable, that people live with complacency and that we accept the status quo without striving to achieve greatness?

The answer to the last question is a definite “no!” And the solution is found in redefining the idea of winning by substituting it with a different philosophy.  Instead of thinking of winning, which is adversarial in nature, think in terms of always doing the very best that you are capable of.

In all pursuits, and at all times, do not compromise the quality and integrity of your performance.  If you are capable of being world champion then go for it.  Not because you have to win, but because you possess the talent and gifts to perform outstandingly well. And if you do not cross the line first, or break a world record, it doesn’t really matter, as long as you have done your best.

If Ben Johnson or Tanya Harding had accepted themselves as world-class sports people, doing their best without the need to resort to drugs or criminal practices, and if they could have valued themselves even when beaten, they would never have experienced the humiliation of real failure and notoriety.

Some time ago I was watching a video entitled, “Olympic Glory”.  At the Olympic Stadium in Mexico City, the sky had darkened and only a few thousand spectators remained.  About an hour earlier, the winner had completed the marathon.  Suddenly, police sirens and whistles drew everyone’s attention to a sole runner entering the arena, wearing the colours of Tanzania. His name was John Stevens Aquari, and he was the very last man to come in. His right leg was bandaged and bloody.

John Aquari had taken a fall earlier in the race and had injured himself badly.  Incredibly, he persisted. With one voice, the remaining few thousand spectators cheered him on.  When he eventually did cross the finishing line, a huge, loud and long standing ovation was given to this plucky star: the man who persevered in spite of the fact that there was no place for him on the winner’s podium.

The event was a highly memorable one.  But what was even more significant was the comment made by Aquari when a reporter interviewed him and asked, “ You are badly injured. Why didn’t you quit?  Why didn’t you just give up?”  Aquari, with quiet dignity replied: “My country didn’t send me 8 000 miles to start this race.  My country sent me to finish it!”

A report that followed said: “Today we have seen a young African runner who symbolises the finest in the human spirit.  We have seen a performance that gives true dignity to sport; a performance that lifts sport out of the category of grown men playing at games; a performance that gives meaning to the word courage.  All honour to John Stevens Aquari of Tanzania”.

Lets turn now to business?  Surely it is appropriate to think in terms of winning over competitors in business? Not according to leadership expert and author, Professor Warren Bennis.

Bennis says, “No business – whether it sells insurance or manufactures cars – can or should be designed to win. It must rather be designed to grow, on quantitative and qualitative levels.  In this sense, it vies more with itself than with its competition …  A company that’s designed merely to win is bound to lose.  For example, John Doe Insurance could win the auto insurance market overnight by offering total-coverage policies at, say, $100 per year, but when the claims began coming in, John Doe would lose his shirt.”

In regard to the last statement made by Bennis, this is exactly what happened to Lloyds of London, at one time the largest and most prestigious insurance market in world.  Due to greed, and the consuming desire to be the biggest and most profitable market on earth, they wrote insurance policies that were time bombs set to explode in the years to come.  These policies were related to asbestos, a product that was known to cause fatalities amongst workers exposed to it.  Medical evidence revealed conclusively that it would take anything from ten to thirty years for a fatal condition known as “asbestosis” to manifest itself.  Yet Lloyds, knowing this, still wrote up thousands of policies.

For many years, members of Lloyds gloated over their ever-increasing wealth, only to be wiped out when they were eventually forced to pay claims and settle court judgements. Lloyds itself was forced to its knees and almost put out of business.  Today it has been reconstituted and is a very different organisation to what it was in its hey-day.

To quote Bennis once more, “The best run and most successful companies in America do not think in terms of victories and defeats, or shining moments.  Instead they think in terms of staying power, dedication to quality, and an endless effort to do better than they have done.  They see change as their only constant and count on their own abilities to adapt to the world, rather than expecting the world to adapt to them.  Indeed, it is a business’ ability to adapt to an ever-changing world that is the basis for both its success and its progress”.

In the final analysis a highly competitive, combative spirit is destructive in business and as a personal value.  The solution, is to focus not on winning but on doing your very best in all endeavours. Seek to learn, to grow.  Work with people in a spirit of co-operation.

When things go wrong, learn from your mistakes and don’t give up. Remember that there’s no such thing as failure, only feedback.

If you do achieve a #1 status at something, savour it, but remain humble.  Enjoy your successes and encourage others. No man or woman can achieve anything significant on his or her own.  Give credit to those who made a difference to your life, and find opportunities to do the same for others.

Albert Einstein was once credited with being one of the greatest minds that ever lived, with far reaching vision.  To this comment he replied that if he could see far, it was only because he stood on the shoulders of great minds that came before him.

Conclusion

A highly competitive nature is destructive for several reasons:

• If winning is everything, failure is assured because it is not possible to win every time.  There will be occasions when things go wrong; a sale is lost, expectations fail to materialise, etc.  Total control over events is not possible and, when reverses occur, people who think only in terms of winning become fearful and are inclined to become depressed.  Alternatively, they may resort to manipulative, unsavoury practices; practices that inevitably end in defeat.
• It sets people up against one another.  In business, beating the competition becomes more important than serving the customer, which is the source of true and sustainable success.
• The need to win will rob you of your self-esteem.  It means that you are nothing if not the best.  And even if you are capable of being #1, this is possible for only brief moment in time.  Eventually, someone will surpass your accomplishments and, when this happens, you are likely to de-value your worth.
• The compulsion to win is invariably accompanied by an inability to enjoy and celebrate the accomplishments of others.  Others are, after all, competitors, and their successes occur at your expense.

Do not obsess about winning. Maintain a desire to excel, be the very best that you are capable of being.  In all things, give your utmost.  Work hard, go the extra mile, learn from your mistakes, overcome problems and always seek to improve yourself, not because you want to be better than others, but because you have chosen to take responsibility for developing and utilising your potential to its maximum.

Success is not a contest.  It’s the result of an attitude that enables you to continually grow, to enjoy life, to build relationships and to fulfil your destiny. You are not in competition with anybody else.  Live your life fully, develop and make use of your unique talents, and do so in a way that enriches your own life, and the lives of others, so that everybody wins.