The case for uncompeting: why leaders should focus on collaboration

"One of the most pervasive rules of business is compete-to-win or perish. But as more organizations struggle to navigate an increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous landscape, some innovative leaders are choosing to collaborate over compete. This is particularly necessary within the organization, where collaboration may be considered beneficial in theory, but in practice, the rules of engagement still revolve around competition: colleagues become rivals over promotion opportunities, recognition, and advancement."

"How do leaders banish in-house competition? They create and model a culture that uncompetes. To uncompete is to intentionally choose to reject competition and actively design for collaboration. Here's how. Harness two types of envy Team collaboration increases when we feel psychological safety-like our team has our back. Competition and envy among colleagues can reduce psychological safety and create a hostile environment if not managed well by leaders."

"Organizational psychologists broadly characterize envy as falling under two categories: benign and malicious envy. Benign envy motivates us to work harder toward a goal when we see someone else achieving it, malicious envy can be destructive and often results in us wanting to sabotage or undermine a colleague's success. A powerful way to cultivate benign envy is to focus on the hard work a team member did to achieve a goal, rather than just focus on the achievement itself."

Many organizations face volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environments that make traditional compete-to-win approaches risky. Internal competition for promotions, recognition, and advancement undermines psychological safety and hampers collective response to external disruption. Leaders can create cultures that uncompete by modeling collaboration and designing structures that prioritize team success. Managing envy by distinguishing benign from malicious forms helps motivate rather than sabotage colleagues. Highlighting effort, especially team-based effort, cultivates benign envy. Implementing rewards and recognition for collaborative behavior shifts incentives away from individualistic competition toward shared goals and organizational resilience.

Read at Fast Company