Competition, if healthy, is something to embrace and learn from. It helps you constantly upskill and optimize your USP. However, while working as a team, heavy competition can move towards toxicity causing the work to suffer. So, start with small steps:
- Before moving into group work, start with team-building activities, Bonding exercises, outings, etc. Get to know their strengths, working styles, personalities, and the direction they want to grow their career in. Then pair them up according to the above, to collaborate on smaller tasks. This would ease them from independent work to partnership to group work.
- Before any group project starts, set a few guidelines: Everything submitted goes as teamwork and not as an individual contribution, to focus on the solution to a problem and learnings for the future, the success of the project relies on every team member pulling their weight, etc.
- Understanding that collaboration is a critical competitive advantage: There is simply too much complexity and change for individual expertise to be sufficient and one must effectively harness the interdisciplinary potential that lives across teams and functions.
- Our brains are constantly on the lookout for threats. People have to learn to override these instincts, to ask first and react later. So, when in doubt, ask. This starts with you as a leader.
- If you notice toxic competition, have a one-on-one conversation: Be vulnerable by giving personal insights based on your experience to encourage the employee through it. Start by complementing their work. When individuals stop worrying about looking good in comparison to their peers, they can shift that energy to the work at hand.
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