I have been recently been watching Gotham (FOX Television) on Netflix. In one of the early episodes in season one a CEO of a company literally puts potential new hires or people looking to get promoted in a fight to the death against the other candidates. This is obviously a made up story in a show, but it reminded me of why competition can kill a culture.
Has your organization ever promoted some kind of internal competition? Here are some less deadly and more realistic examples than the Gotham one I mentioned:
- Multiple people are up for the same promotion and one of them gets it, which is great for that person, but not so great for the others. This situation happens all the time, but the killer is when the company actually makes a big deal about this situation. A lot of times the losers of these competitions end up leaving the organization.
- A company creates a competition where the top salesperson wins a free trip somewhere or a bonus of some kind. This sounds fine, right? But what about the people who don’t win? And honestly do these incentives actually increase productivity? Typically the top producers win because they are the top producers. The other people don’t do much more than they usually do and they are left thinking that those other employees get everything and they always get nothing.
- Employee of the Month awards are prevalent in many organizations. Typically this recognition involves awarding employees who simply do what they are supposed to and it can often be a popularity contest. Winning can be the result of personality rather than production.
Internal competition on a team, a desire for personal rather than team accomplishment undermines a team. It can cripple an organization. It can quickly turn a positive culture into a negative one. Never set up competitive situations where one team member must face off against another team member. This creates a disconnect between your people.
Competition can lead to more stress for some employees that may lower productivity. Some people don’t perform well under pressure and are more productive when the culture allows for a more easygoing approach to getting things done.
Healthy competition in an organization or on a team should be the team vs. the opposing team. In sports, an attitude of: “the team lost but ‘I’ was the game MVP is a recipe for a losing season. We shouldn’t keep score on personal accomplishments. Most people understand this, yet organizations still continue to create internal competitions.
Competition tends to come from the leaders of the organization. Those same leaders are the ones who shape the culture. Perhaps they see nothing wrong with a little competition, but what about the other employees? What do they want?
Most importantly as a leader in an organization you must KNOW YOUR PEOPLE. This simple factor will help build a positive culture or turnaround a toxic one.
Let’s get rid of internal competition and focus on what’s most important. That of course being RESULTS. Great results don’t come from competition. They come from ACTION. We need a little less talk and a lot more action.
I talk more about this in my book, The Turnaround. You can grab a copy of it for free here!
When you look at the nature of competition in this country for the last 35 years, it has become too negative where it ends up being a doggy, dog world. In addition, a bad/evil leader will use competition to divide and conquer his workforce so they will not be able to unite to create a better working condition.
Employee of the month or the year doesn’t mean a thing when there are too many people in the organization. Look at the Airman, Solider, Marine, Sailor of the year award. What chance do you have when you have about 2 million soldiers that you are competing against.? Even if you are in an organization that has only 1,000 or less people, your chances of winning are far and few in winning an employee of the month or employee of the year. Kind of like trying to win the lottery.
Winning an employee of the month or the award also can depend on how well your boss can exert enough pressure to help you win the award whether you are a good or bad worker. I knew a worker who won an Employee of the month, but she was a gossiper, a backstabber, always wanted more work but then was complaining about her workload when she spent too much time talking on the telephone and her boss knew about it but did not do a thing to change her bad behavior.
You also have big corporations like Walmart and guys like Bill Gates who will try to prevent any kind of competition from new upstart companies or the Koch Brothers who tried to stop new alternative energy industries like solar and wind. Furthermore, you have internet cable companies who refuses to provide services to poor inner city and rural areas because there is no profit for them; however, they don’t want the city, county, and state governments to provide such services. If they can’t provide services, then they should not prevent government for taking up the slack.