Competition is deeply rooted in nearly every aspect of Western life, from our capitalist economic system to the way we elect our governments, from the atmosphere in which we educate our young people to many workplace environments and career ladders.
Machiavelli wrote The Prince 450 years ago, and he chronicles the way in which conflict creates division.
Machiavelli actually applauds conflict because it can unify even a combative group of people if they have a common enemy.
Competition is a subset of conflict in which we continue to establish a sense of unity around a common goal of beating our opponent.
This tactic is used in everything from politics (we need to stop the other guys from destroying our country!) to business (our brand can only be the top consumer choice if we beat the other brands!) to social interactions (I need to get more social media followers than my rival!).
The point is that while competition can create unity and help create success, it also bears the price of breeding division.
Healthy competition exists – in a healthy relationship two people (or groups) working towards the same goal can develop a rivalry to push each other to excel without creating destructive rivalries.
We need to better understand the latent power within competition to divide and actively guard against sowing seeds of division within our society so that we can capture the potential power of competition without causing harm.
By recognizing the potential for harm, we can ensure we capitalize on the good instead.
In my next post I will be discussing specifically how competition works in the marketplace, both in the positive and the negative.