A Fair Competition: Corporate / MNC Perspective

Recently, we saw the legend finally getting toppled from his thrown in the IAAF World Championships finals in 100 m in London. I am not going into sports records of Usain Bolts as many people have written thousands of articles on the same and we all love the legend, as a true son of wind, for his achievements. What striked me was the shear respect offered by his fellow competitor, Justin Gatlin, after the race was over.

These competitions are like life and death for these players and they put in all their blood and soul into it. The victory and defeat literally has a marginal distance but look at the way these people accept their defeats and move on with their lives to compete in another tournament where they can again challenge the current champion or try to defend their own title. Learning from the mistake and improvisation on personal level are given more importance along with the Competitor’s Analysis.

If I compare the similar competition with our corporate life in Multi-National Companies or even National Companies, do we see the same/similar sportsman spirit? I am talking 2 different types of competitions here.

• One is an external competition, among the companies, when they are going after projects, where winning and losing can be life and death situations for certain companies. If one loses one project or say few projects, it can be in trouble from cashflow, market standing, retaining the talent point of view. If one company wins it, their share prices go up and it sees many positive business parameters kicking in.
• Another competition is within an Organization/Company and it is among the peers. In the corporate rat race, all compete for their individual promotion, increment, recognition, limelight, value, getting abroad opportunities, power or say authority.

Now, when we compare these two competitions verses sports competition, how do we compare the nature of these competitions? Are they fair? Are they healthy? Are they mutually beneficial to take up the benchmarks of the industry to the next level? Are they played with due respect to the competitors? What kind of cheating tactics takes place? What kind of dirty politics is played? What kind of “buttering the boss” takes place? Which strings are pulled within the Organizations or the end client or the government authorities? How many bosses or decision makers are influenced by one or the other ways? What kind of corruption takes place?

These are the known facts and most of us know the answers of all above questions. Instead of doing a negative comparison, let’s just put forward the positives from sports competitions.

1)     A Sportsman always respects the opponents and appreciates the positives from their opponents, may it be a Gatlin-Bolt competition or Nadal-Federer or Warne-Tendulkar type of a competition. Media may give a color of rivalry to these matches but I think they are always played on very fair grounds by these individual competitors.

2)     Sportsman always takes their defeat in a right spirit and they do bounce back for the next competition. There is no back stabbing or any type of politics just to win the next competition.

3)     Winning one competition does not necessarily mean a clean domination or monarchy for the next competition. They just cannot take anything for granted and they must prepare equally or better for the next competitions. No two or more consecutive wins can assure you a win for the next time. These demanding conditions force the sportsmen to work on their quality of work, endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, skills etc. Is this a case in our companies? Do we thrive for adding value all the time or just clocking in Sales Order is enough for survival? Do we consider it as just a number growth or real time enhancement in “Value of the Money”?

4)     Sports teaches us the Team Work and what is important is the team should win verses having only a rat race of who is the “man of the match” or the “player of the tournament”. Team spirit and team’s success always should be the priority above individual accolades. Does the same principle apply in competitions within the companies/organizations?

5)     Sports Champions always pass on the credit of their success to their coaches, fitness trainers, psychologist, nutritionist, family and all the supporters. Do we see such approach in our organizations? Do they recognize the contribution of all associates or do they mostly steal the credit at few individual levels only?

Competitions should bring out the best of individuals and companies. Unfortunately, the realities are different in corporate companies. What goes among the companies, for project pursuits, can be market driven and can also depend on company strategies. I will not go into much details here because it’s a vast subject within itself.

However, how to cultivate the internal competition can be again devoted to company policies and company cultures. Companies proudly spell on their fair competition as well as equal opportunity policies. Companies take pride in promoting their cultures, values, ethics, integrity and principles. Do they really practice what they preach?

At the end of the day, it appears that most of these competitions are personality driven, from both ends, a subordinate and his/her line managers, than policy driven. Many times, deserving candidates lose career opportunities due to these unfair competitions.

What could be the factors for such situations?

• Competitions themselves are not fair in terms of their nature (compare equal opportunity or eligibility criterions)
• Competitors are not fair in their approach and use wrong practices (compare personal agendas or unnecessary individual rivalry)
• Judges or Decision Makers are not fair (compare bias or insecurity of certain individuals in selection process)

Granted the needs for qualifications, skills, expertize, experiences, talents, etc. are different at different levels but again my question is that do we compete on the fair terms in our organizations? What does your Corporate Experience say here? Do we see any room for learnings for the organizations? If so, can “Imparting Sportsman Spirit Training to Leadership Teams” add a value to the organizations in a long run? I think “Sportsman Spirit” is another competency we should look at while developing or promoting tomorrow’s leaders in any organization. It would help business practices being more fair and the growth would really be with leaps and bounds.

As per Usain Bolt "Every Season, for me, it's like starting from scratch again." Hence, the companies also need to revisit their strategies every year and should ensure that they run healthy and fair competitions within themselves.