Being Your Best vs Being The Best

Reyjo's Notion Series: Episode 12 .1

While attending a certification program with participants from the U.S, Italy, Serbia, China and India, every day it felt as if I am actually travelling to those parts of the world, through the stories of the fellow participants. Apart from building lifelong friendships, this opportunity also opened the doors for cultural exchange which involved sharing different ideas, traditions, and knowledge with people who came from a completely different background than my own.

Among all the participants, the friend from Italy was the wittiest. He sets the tone for the day, the moment he greets all, as he enters the class room. Soon later, the happy faces take a different turn as the intense and serious sessions follow. Most of the times, we don’t get to realize that its lunch time.

During the break, the Italian shares the ‘discoveries’ that he made during the previous night to find the easiest and fastest way to find an answer. We all felt very fortunate to have been receiving the ‘quickies’ from him. We admired him in awe for the additional effort he puts in, to find the best solution.

As the day progresses, I particularly look forward to the cultural exchange that happens post lunch. During one such day, as one of our friends was sharing a bit about the tradition of theirs’, the Italian intervened and said “No, you should not try to be YOUR best but be THE best”. He followed it up saying “Do you know that the Italian suits are the best in the world.” Many others had an argument to challenge this view, but he continued. “Italian suits are sleek and trim, which inadvertently also promotes maintaining fitness and shape. You should be good enough to don an Italian suit”. Oh wow! Now that’s an interesting perspective.

My Italian friend, then, opined about the thought process of Italians which goes behind creating such enthralling products. It goes like this;

• Trying YOUR best is a limiting factor as it leaves room for interpretation, so be THE best.
• You may slip in some excuses for having only ‘YOUR best’ to offer, which may be inadequate to be THE best.
• A product will (at some stage) find a competition and it shall aim to win rather than collaborate and co-exist in the pretext of sharing a bigger market.
• THE best product never struggles to reach to a customer but it happens the other way around; the customer easily finds it.

This opinion of his’, did spur some counter views and enlightening discussions which favored ‘being YOUR best’. Here, I will enumerate those too.

• Competitive mindset can consume you before you know it.
• Being YOUR best ensures that you remain driven yet can easily collaborate.       
• Your biggest competitor shall be yourself, even though comparison helps you to identify your unique value.
• Collaborative approach will open the way to embrace ‘Power of Proximity’ and thus can discover interesting opportunities.

‘Being YOUR best’ also attracted some stimulating discussions that held, you yourself has different versions, based on the time and place, where you are expected to deliver a particular version of yourself. Since we had to catch up with afternoon sessions that day, we decided to settle with the following statements.

 Being THE best and remaining competitive works well for a product in most circumstances.

Being YOUR best places you in a different area within the spectrum of ambition. It goes well with people who adopt this at corporate work places.

BUT is there ‘a unique combination’ of both which is influenced by the context? :-)