Why compete when you can collaborate?

A couple of weeks ago, I was having lunch with one of my best friends from my boarding school days (we're talking 1996 - 1999). We were in the midst of recalling many pleasant memories when a thought struck me - he and I were from different "Houses" (hostels). If you're unfamiliar with what it means to be in a "House", you need only watch the first of the Harry Potter movies and you will be well acquainted with the concept, at the heart of which lies differentiation and competition. 

Our Houses, being the two boys' Houses, were for the most part of it, arch rivals in everything from sports to arts to elocution. In matters of the annual inter-house championship, the rivalry was sharp enough to cut the air with! Tempers and friendships frayed around the edges as the hormone-fueled dramatics of adolescent males sparked competition for everything from medals to the attention of young ladies. Sure, there were several extravagant displays of sportsmanship and the occasional cheering for chaps from another House, but in the end, it was all about "MY House" winning or not. I imagine it wasn't very different for the girls' Houses when it came to inter-house competitions either. From my experiences across the schools that I've studied in, and what contemporary media portrays - my observations are only describing a fairly normal phenomenon, albeit with a fair amount of rhetoric. But hey - it is my blog after all! 

My train of thought led me to a point where I wondered, what implications these early influences have for our lives as adults. Today, if you do a survey of leadership teams across many organizations, business and HR leaders alike will recite fairly predictable tales of woe about "siloed" units with a visible lack of "collaboration". They will tell you how this is unhealthy for the organization in the long term and how if only it were different, they would be achieving dramatically different business results. And they are right. I have seen this trend in several organizations across industries - Education, Travel, Manufacturing, Healthcare etc. They've all got a common challenge where units and functions end up in covert (if not blatant) competition each other, when really, they should be doing everything possible to co-exist, collaborate and co-create success. Instead of sharing resources, proactively offering support, anticipating each others' challenges and extending help, we often find organizations affected by power struggles between little fiefdoms / coteries, where the micro-microcosm of "Me" and "Mine" can easily eclipse the ultimate mission and purpose of the enterprise. 

So, where does this challenge originate? In my opinion, it has its roots in a certain hardwired pattern of thinking around what it means to be successful, which in turn is rooted in one's early influences. Early in life, one learns lessons around "survival of the fittest", the need to "win your share" etc. This is probably quite pronounced in highly competitive cultures and in cultures where one struggles against a scarcity of resources.We learn this mindset from caregivers, friends, teachers, significant others, colleagues and many other influencers, all of whom have been conditioned in the same way. What we often don't see is a fundamental seed of thought underlying all of this - which is basically the idea that for "me" to be successful, someone or something else has to fail. A deep-rooted concept gets established, wherein what "I" get in my life is only good or worth keeping if someone else doesn't have something as good. If someone else has something better, what "I" have is implicitly worth less - and by generalization, "I" am inferior to the other. To my mind, this is one of the seed thoughts that sooner or later pushes "healthy" rivalry and competition over the edge and leads to dysfunctional behaviors. If you look closely at many situations (personal and professional), you will probably find many patterns of behavior that were present in the competitive schoolboy or schoolgirl, showing up in subtler forms in the adult that he/ she became.

This phenomenon plays out beautifully and visibly in organizations, where individual leaders drive great success in their respective perimeters, determined to succeed at all costs, but don't give any thought  to collaborating with a peer (who by the way is pretty much doing the same thing), regardless of the fact that together they may well achieve something that was impossible for either to achieve in isolation. Their individual ambition to stand head-and-shoulders above, is not just about external competition, it's also about one-upmanship with colleagues. They are vying for attention from 'superiors', that corner office everyone wants, raises, promotions etc. etc. And each time, the concept is of winning something at the cost of another. Sooner or later the leader's behavior spreads to the rest of the team too... and I don't have to complete that story for you...

Many performance cultures also subconsciously promote these patterns because they don't suitably make the real meaning of collaboration understandable, attractive and rewarding. They reward people for "Winning" or "making their numbers" but pay little heed to "how it was done". The key shift in perspective that truly winning organizations drive is "I don't win unless others around me win too!" The idea is to do everything you can and go the extra mile to make others successful as well. Read this beautiful story about a corn farmer, which illustrates this principle to perfection (it recently featured on several forms of social media). You will notice that his wins do not come at the cost of another, but rather they ride a wave of collective success and goodwill from people who could otherwise have been locked in fierce competition with him. 

So, if you've read this far, I want to share with you a few offerings of thought. Some messages that my intuition asks me to share with you - in the hope that these will trigger ideas that you can spread when you feel up to it. 

What I'd like you to do is to think of the following relationships where you might be competing, and see if you can start collaborating instead:

The Manager - Reportee relationship

I've seen some reportee get into unstated competitions with managers because they want the manager's position. This can be because they think they can do a better job or because they simply want the benefits and authority that comes with the role. At the same time, the Managers are locked in competition with their own people, because they feel the need to hold on to their positions and power. After all, they've got to appear superior to their employees, don't they? 

My challenge for managers and employees alike is to play with an alternative, where they strive relentlessly to make each other successful. They do everything possible to ensure that they achieve and exceed their goals as a team. When employees are thriving and the managers are also thriving, it doesn't take long before each gets new opportunities, expanded roles and scope etc. All it takes it for each individual to break out of the trap of thinking that success comes from dethroning a supposed superior. 

The Peer-Peer relationship

This is probably even tougher, because peers can be 'locked in combat' for the manager's attention, approval and eventual succession. But collaborating with your peer can actually be the missing element that gets you success you desire at a faster pace and in a way far healthier than running each other down. Transcending workplace politics, if you consider how sharing with and support between peers creates exponential increases in resources, ideas, creative solutions, the impetus to collaborate will come naturally and you could even end up developing some truly meaningful / beneficial relationships in the workplace. 

And what happens if the peer get the promotion that you wanted? Consider my final two offerings

Trust your Life to give you what you need.

If you didn't get something that someone else got, does that diminish or harm you in any way? It probably doesn't unless it was in some way linked to life or death - like being trapped someone else in an airtight room and having only a restricted amount of oxygen to breathe. 

Often, our deeply ingrained patterns of exaggerated competitiveness trap us in elaborate webs of thinking where we equate events with consequences that don't necessarily have to exist, unless we make our self-fulfilling prophecies come true! 

So if your peer gets the promotion that you also wanted, it doesn't have to mean that you didn't deserve it or that the peer did something underhand or that it was plain dumb luck. You could choose an alternative thought that it wasn't necessarily the thing for you at the moment and you could then choose to believe that your life will give you what you really need instead. Do the best you can do, spread the best in you to others around you and accept with grace the returns that come your way? If a corn farmer can live that way and win competition after competition, who's to say you can't?

And last of all: expand or destroy the imaginary walls of your "In-group"

"Us" versus "them" thinking triggers competition to a great degree, even to the point where entire groups are obliterated in acts of war. Leaving that extreme example aside, if in your own sphere of work, you start looking at people from the lens of "My Company" and/or "Our Purpose" you automatically shrink the number of your competitors and increase the number of your people. If you can start holding this thought in your mind, it will enable to you change the way you approach interactions with your people. Chances are that will show up differently with them and influence them to work with you rather than against you. Like a symphony, you will produce outcomes together, which you'd never have been able to create alone. 

So, drop an old pattern or two...

...and enjoy the Sunrise! :-)

PS - if you're wondering how any of this is related to having lunch with my best friend, here's the answer. Over a lip smacking bowl of Khow Suey, came the realization that we were friends throughout the competitive madness of inter-House rivalry. We shared knowledge freely with each other, sat next to each other even in the midst of inter-House competitions and stayed friends ever since - because we probably realized that the ROI of a collaborative friendship would last much much longer than the excitement of winning a competition. 

One thought away...

Maybe a new thought is all that lies between you and what you desire...

A few days ago, I was having breakfast with a friend, who  was going through a challenging transition at work. His previous role and team had been dissolved recently and it was taking a while for him to get a new role in the organization. There was uncertainty and apprehension in the minds of many people who were affected by this change and he too was affected by all of this. We agreed that I would coach him over breakfast, to help him think through his challenges and get clarity on what to do next. 

My friend's energy was noticeably low at the start of the session. His voice was lower than usual, his shoulders dropped, his back was hunched and his eyes were downcast. We started by exploring what he had already thought of or tried. It turned out that the dissolution of the previously role had actually given him the opportunity to think of what else he could do in the organization. He'd come up with an idea that he liked and was looking for a chance to communicate it to the CEO. However, he wasn't sure of how well he could communicate the idea and get the kind of buy in an support he needed to execute it. When I asked him what the idea was, he explained it to me in the same lack-lustre style, with no visible change in his state. 

Going with a hunch, I asked him to step away from the idea for a little while to do an exercise. I asked him to imagine his ideal future state and describe three aspects of it to me: How would he like to "be" as a person? What would need to "know" in order to get there? What would he be "doing", which would tell him that all was going as it should? When he completed the exercise, there were several points he had to share, but I won't go into the details here. What I will share is that in he put the word "happy" in his desired future state. 

That caught my fancy and I asked him to tell me more about that. It turned out that he felt he would be happy if he could become a better communicator, enroll a bunch of his peers to his idea, sell the idea to a CEO, win a team etc. So quite clearly, his happiness was linked to achieving all of this. 

Fair enough. My next question to him was "What would happen if you started by being happy?"

And then there was silence... followed by a puzzled expression and a "What do you mean?"

I repeated exactly the same question, with exactly the same response and so elaborated the question a little more by drawing a little diagram on a paper napkin. One circle for the "current state" and another for the desired (future) state, with an arrow connecting the first to the second. Under "current state" I put the word "happy" and put a question mark under "desired state". I further explained that I was curious to know what would happen if he began by being happy today, rather than expecting to be happy when all of thse great things happened in the future. 

As the question sank in, a curious change came over him. His eyes brightened, he started smiling, his voice grew stronger and his back and shoulders slowly straightened. He answered my question saying that being happy now would change the way he'd approach all  the tasks ahead of him i.e communicating, enrolling stakeholders, convincing peers etc. As we explored his ideas further, what emerged is the understanding that expecting a whole bunch of people to do a whole bunch of things that would eventually make him happy wasn't a healthy state of mind to be in. Not only did it set him up for anxiety, it also put a lot of pressure on these people to live up to his expectations. Being in this state would impact the way in which he would communicate with them - he would be looking for their buy-in and approval, more than he would be focusing on the great idea he had to share with them. As a result, the impact of his big idea would be diluted. 

So what could he be happy about now? He could be happy about BEING who he is and the fact that he has a great idea. He could choose to energise himself by working on his idea, thinking it throughm detailing it and bouncing it off some people who could further add to it. He could be excited about the opportunity to take this idea to people and the opportunity of getting them to co-create the future with him. He could shift from wanting to convince people, and expecting them to conform to inspiring them to think along with him and share his dream.

The key shift was choosing the thought "I am happy now and I will start from here." rather than the thought "I must start doing blah blah blah, which when successful, will finally make me happy". Starting from a state of happiness made him understand that he is already the person who can do something significant and achieve his desired outcomes. Sure, he'd need some support from others, but being happy in the here and now would completely change the impact he would have when connecting them them. He'd be energized, in control and inspiring, rather than hesitant, expectant and uncertain. 

As the thought sank further in, he actually began to laugh, as did I. I can tell you that he is now approaching his tasks with a completely fresh perspective, putting in place an entirely new way of approaching the future. And I know he will get what he wants... and then some more! 

One thought is all it took.

What about you? Will you choose to be happy now?

Enjoy the sunrise!

You want to be energised?

A few days ago, I was sitting with my CHRO, discussing an upcoming white paper on HR practices in M&A scenarios. As we discussed the kind of insights we would include in the paper, we dwelt on several lessons that the past had to teach us, some of them unpleasant, even regrettable - but many more of them stories that inspire and invigorate us just by the mere act of recalling and retelling them. 

I made a simple observation - that more than tales of woe, there were so many stories about things that had been done very well, things that we'd done right, which we could now record for the future. And immediately her face lit up, she nodded enthusiastically and said "You know what I tell my leaders? I say to them, 'You want to be energised? Pay attention to the positives in your life and in your work. It will give you enough and more energy to fix the negatives and surge ahead!' Otherwise, there is never a shortage of things you can dwell on that will drain the energy out of you."

I think that statement had, for me, unlocked the secret to her seemingly boundless energy - something I had often struggled to comprehend, given that she heads HR for an exceedingly complex organization, with a highly challenging business context and an aggressive transformation agenda. In such situations, things can and do go wrong on a daily basis. People can get on-edge, exasperated, exhausted as they push themselves to achieve what the organization needs. In such contexts, when you see an energized, enthusiastic and enabling leader, you have to wonder - "How does s/he do it?"

Well, this is how it's done. Even as you deal with the multitude of challenges, meltdowns and setbacks, you choose an alternative thought. You choose to remain aware of the success stories and draw inspiration from them. You choose to believe that in the face of all odds, you can recreate successes because you have the strengths and resources that made them possible. I believe that in such a state, the brain can focus on what David Rock, CEO of the Neuroleaderhsip Institute, calls the "Towards State" - which is the starting point of a journey towards positive change. 

For instance, I could very easily be daunted by the task of preparing a white paper on an HR topic that I have never dealt with in the past. In this state I could think of all the things that could possibly go wrong - e.g. Not knowing where to begin, going completely off track, making a fool of myself when I speak to people on this topic, blah blah blah! However, if in the middle of the misgivings, I take a moment to choose a different thought - that I have faced and won in similar challenges with different stakeholders in my previous roles, on topics which I had to learn from scratch - I start shifting to a different state of awareness. I become aware of strengths which enabled me to do something similar in the past and I acknowledge those strengths for the help they will give me in the present and future as well. 

Centuries ago, the saint Kabir composed this couplet:

Dukh mein sumiran sab kare, sukh mein kare na koi,

Jo sukh mein sumiran kare, to dukh kaahe ko hoi?

In sadness, everyone thinks of the Divine (praying for succor) but in happiness, nobody does.

If you can remember the Divine even when you are happy, what cause will you ever have to be sad?

Kabir's couplet comes to mind as I think of what my CHRO said. In the act of acknowledging the positives, being inspired by them and being grateful for their occurrence, we derive a precious source of energy and sustenance that helps us to persevere through our challenges and emerge from them, stronger, wiser and even more charged than before.

This approach isn't that of escapism, where we blot out the negatives and focus desperately on real or imagined positives. It is instead the approach of awareness, where one consciously balances inevitable awareness of the difficulties with an (easy-to-lose-track-of) awareness of strengths and successes. 

And that, my friends, is one of the many secrets to being an energised leader...

Enjoy the Sunrise!