We strive for competition from the football pitch to the pitch given in the board room, but we teach the lesson of collaboration from elementary school to executive business school. We train future leaders to be more collaborative and inclusive, yet they endorse events that promote competition once they hold administrative positions. The competition has become furious yet glorified under the name of sport and entertainment. It is further blended under the colors of national or ethnic pride. In reality, the ecstasy is not in national pride but in experiencing the fight of people who struggle to endorse their supremacy and see the opponent defeated. Undoubtedly, most of us are mere spectators who have inherited the love of watching two alpha males fighting for their supremacy from our anthropological ancestors.
A group of young boys and girls chanting “fight, fight, fight!” and thumping their feet on the locker room floor, eagerly waiting to start a brawl between their fellow is not much different from the rant among the players in the dressing room before they step their feet on the football pitch. The sentiments in locker rooms are identical as both are driven by the urge to impose their supremacy over fellows and seek the endorsement of their dominance from the audience. The stronger will smash the younger, the weaker will beat up the weakest, and the spectators in the locker room will keep chanting, “Fight, fight, fight!”. Over time, the dominant shall become stronger and seek more submission, and the brawl turns into a competition with a new loser being added to the list until the status quo is maintained.
The only time chanting will get a break is when the younger or weakest knocks out the elder or strongest, then the audience in the locker room will call it an ‘exciting brawl.’ Brawl, quarrel, duel, or fight gives the most important thing to their audience -Instant gratification to end their curiosity. The curiosity of finding the dominant and submissive one. This single attribute keeps the people flocking to the stadium, amphitheater, and Colosseum. As long as the outcome is uncertain and there is a probability of challenging the status quo, the spectator will be there to fill up the seats. If the fight’s outcome is predictable between the weakest and strongest, there will be no spectators to chant. Today’s competition is not much different from the gladiatorial games, where Roman elites used to hold the holy grail and enjoy the game along with plebeians who chanted a similar slogan of “fight, fight, fight!”. Today’s elite holds the Heineken and chant similar for their respective team.
Romans placed their gladiators on testing their physical strength for their entertainment, whereas we — the civilized world; ask the players of the game to prove their emotional, mental, and physical strength for entertainment nicely wrapped in the name of competition. A chat in the stadium to support their team is not much different from a chant in the Colosseum pumping up the gladiators to fight.
If the world is about a competition, where can I find collaboration? — The answer is quite simple. You can find the collaboration outside locker rooms back in the classroom. Sneak peek inside the world of academia and explore the research labs and the study dormitories; this is where you will find the words of wisdom and people who foster collaboration. Look for Hogwarts outside the Colosseum, which will help you to seek collaboration; stay away from the spectators who are only there to pump you up for the competition. The only trade-off to moving from the camp of competition to the base of collaboration is the cost of losing the spectators. Competition is always followed by the spectators but not collaboration.
In today’s modern world, the real test of a civilized man is not to test his ability to put their fellow human down. It lies in his qualities to establish the relationship of collaboration to succeed. Foster collaboration instead of competition and make everyone contribute towards becoming successful. There is no joy in celebrating a win without the person with whom you had played the game. There is no glory in picking the trophy when your fellow sportspeople have been agonized. There is no pride in playing the game with your fellow players with the aim of celebrating their defeat to feed the instant gratification of spectators.
If someone really likes the competition, then make it a game among three players, like a Mexican stand-off. A duel in which no one can enforce their supremacy over others, and there is no one to chant, “Fight, fight, fight!”.
Asif Durrani
02 Dec 2022
https://www.linkedin.com/in/asifdurrani
Also published at Medium
Asif Durrani 