Competition Makes Us Better

No matter whether we talk business, politics, sports or games, competition makes us better. It encourages inspires and motivates many of us to be better and more successful than the other guy or gal. It drives us to be the best we can be. Many of us are raised to win and to drive ourselves to be winners. And in many ways, it is what makes Americans different than many of their brothers and sisters in other countries.

Michael E. Porter is the Bishop William Lawrence University Professor at Harvard Business School, an economist and the author of 15 books. On Competition is his more recent book in which he takes a critical look at the "dog-eat-dog international economy." For Porter, "competition is the ingredient that turns lemons into lemonade."

According to the synopsis at Barnes & Nobel,com: "The essence of Porter's message is that every company, country, and person must master competition to thrive in brutal international and domestic economies. Competition is the key to excellence. Worried about losing your job or your services becoming obsolete? Porter believes that a little fear is good for everyone. "Companies that value stability, obedient customers, dependent suppliers and sleepy competitors are inviting inertia and, ultimately, failure," he writes in his 1990 study and essay "The Competitive Advantage of Nations." Porter is a longtime critic of the short-term thinking on Wall Street that often stifles competition and hurts the economy. In "Capital Disadvantage: America's Failing Capital Investment System," he calls for much lower capital-gains rates for people who invest for the long term. He also urges investors and businesses to start thinking together. He contends that pension funds and institutional investors should get a greater say over the companies they own. It's wacky to have company directors with little expertise or financial interest in the company, he writes."

Is this attitude good for us? I'll leave that for you to decide and to comment on. But for me, without competition I think being a couch potato would be appealing. I love competing, even when I lose, which to me means finishing any place other than first. That translates into losing most of the time. And from those losses, I believe I have learned how to be a risk-taker, how to be a good sport and how to be a good winner. I look at being competitive as a life lesson, not a death lesson.

A life lesson means:

1. Playing by the rules.
2. Playing honestly.
3. Abhorring cheating of any kind.
4. Accepting losing graciously and shaking the hand of the winner.
5. Praising the other competitors for helping me be better at what I do.
6. Thanking other competitors for driving me to my infrequent victories.
7. Enjoying the game more than the winning but always working to win.
8. Rejecting ruthlessness for being rigorous.
9. Understanding and appreciating the value of all players.
10. Putting people first, even if it causes me to finish lower than first, but always playing to win fairly, ethically and morally.

Here are some businesses and people I believe are better for the competition:

• Starbucks as it struggles to regain market share. Competitors are causing the company to get off its butt, stop resting on its laurels and work to get an edge by providing better experiences for its customers.
• Dell as it works to improve what was once a bad history of customer service and is reaching out to engage it customers.
• John McCain who is being forced to look at his votes and his stances as he is forced to compete again Governor Huckabee and respond to the Right Wing of his party.
• Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will be better people for their tight battle.
• Every team in the National Football League as they set their sites on defeating the New England Patriots.

P.S. Check out Seth's, Advice for real estate agents (quit now!), for a another view on the value of competition.