Win, Lose, or Grow?

Originally shared in A Daily Dose Of Leadership on August 13, 2020.

Following the theme we’ve followed over the last few days, I’m going to challenge you with a question right out of the gate: WHAT do you think or feel when someone in a similar role or field as you’re in succeeds? Are you excited for them? Is there any sense of jealousy? Do you view it as them beating you or getting ahead of you?

Let me be very transparent here; this is something I’ve struggled with at times. And quite honest, there’s a lot of systems in place throughout society to reinforce a competitive sense in us when we see someone we view as a competitor doing well. The traditional thought process is that when they do well or gain market share, then we inherently must be doing poorly and losing market share.

Are your toes OK so far? This may be stepping on them a bit but that’s not my goal!

In The Infinite Game, Simon Sinek gives a number of examples of how many businesses have traditionally been operated as if the companies were competing with one another in a sport, keeping track of the score and racing the clock to a set end point.The challenge with that comes in assuming there’s an end point. Unless we’ve clearly defined a time where we plan to exit the market, wouldn’t it just make so much more sense to move forward with a focus on continuous improvement?

With regards to the feeling of jealousy or loss, I remember hearing John Maxwell make a statement that shook my thinking. He said, “So many people today are fighting to get their piece of the pie. I’ve always tried to approach life knowing that there’s a baker in the back making more pies every day.” (If you share a faith with John and I, you know the Baker he’s referring to…) But let’s be honest with ourselves here as well; that’s still way easier said than done!

Simon shares a story about being on stage with the person he viewed as his biggest competitor and realizing that all of the discomfort he had felt around and toward that individual really boiled down to insecurities he had within himself. Once he came to terms with those, recognizing that he didn’t have to be perfect in every single aspect of his life, he was able to transition to viewing this person as a worthy rival who pushed him to be better rather than someone he was competing against for the best spot in a parking lot on Black Friday. Simon said that it finally dawned on him that people could actually buy both of their books…

So maybe instead of looking at whether we’re winning or losing, we need to be focusing on whether or not we’re growing! Rather than constantly measuring ourselves against someone else, maybe we should be working to constantly improve on our own previous best… Maybe we can even view some of the folks in our same market as our worthy rivals that serve as benchmarks for that improvement rather than viewing them as a competitor who’s looking to take our business. That certainly won’t be everyone in our markets, as there will always be some folks who are looking to uncut us or simply steal business away from us rather than earning business on their own merits; I’m very OK those without character getting pummeled! And they eventually will in one way or another…

So how can we set our targets in a way that drives this kind of continuous improvement? We’ll look at that in the next blog!