Dear Freddy
Thanks for the thoughtful post. You're right that a retreat to Webster's
(or whatever) is warranted. I can see now that you (and Winfried(?)) are
thinking of "competition" in terms of an end state, i.e. "striving for the
same," while I'm thinking of it in terms of the act of competing (i.e. the
means chosen to "strive (sic) for the smae.") What I was trying to say is
that, even if two or more organisations, people, teams, whatever, are
"competing" for some "same" end state (a sale, a promotion, a place in the
World Cup) the means they will attempt to employ to achieve these ends
will be radically different (but, quite possiby, equally "valid"). To me,
as a "practitioner" of competitive strategy, the ends are far less
interesting that are the means. Most ends (e.g. "increase stakeholder
value," "be a good corporate citizen," "create a learning organsiation,"
etc.) are so obvious that they are trivial. The rub, my friend, is
finding out the best ways to achieve them--that is, very, very hard, and
is what competition is all about, IMHO, AA (As Always).
>May I ask wich dictionary you are using? I don't have (as a Dutch
>student) a Webster's available, but my own dictionary defines
>competition as 'striving for the same'. So when two or more people or
>heading for the same (indivisible) goal, there exists competition. You
>could argue that these people or doing the same, only in different ways.
>But maybe it's just all about our own stupid language :)"
>
>Freddy Holwerda
--Richard Goodale <fc45@dial.pipex.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>