>Your post, unwittingly I'm sure, exposes a large part of what this thread
>is all about. The word "virtue," according to my dictionary, comes "from
>Latin virtut-, virtus strength, manliness, virtue, from vir man -- more at
>VIRILE." Manliness. This thread is largely about the differences between
>the genders. Cooperation is more of a feminine trait (I hope I won't get
>too much disagreement on this), and competition is a masculine trait. The
>war of the sexes is still alive and well (a manly metaphor, war, exposing
>myself as masculine).
Recently I was reading an article on genetics. There was a statement
which has lingered on. It goes something like (sic) "The traditional
notion of the Darwinian philosophy of survival of the fittest does not
seem to explain all evolution processes. Nature seems to evolve as much
through collaboration as it does through natural selection".
Perhaps is this what was missing all along? Have the present notions
emerged from a predominantly male empowered society? But why do you say
that competition and cooperation are male and female traits? Does this
analogy indicate something towards what should be the ideal?
>The question this brings to mind, for me, is "what benefits does
>cooperation bring to the job, and what benefits does competition bring;
>and how can we use them both effectively and simultaneously?" It sure
>sounds like a brain twister to me.
Here is a cogitation. Please let me know what you think of it--
"Compete with yourself, cooperate with others"
It is widely believed that healthy competition fosters growth and
increased quality. However as the nature of tasks become bigger and more
cerebral in nature, it becomes increasingly difficult to measure and
evaluate the efforts of the competitiors. Infact, the only true
evaluator of a mental model would be the very same person who has
developed the model.
Hence a direction towards increased quality would be to compete with our
previous performances-- *we* would know whether we have succeeded or
not. One way of competing with ourselves comes through collaboration
with others. When ideas enter from other sources it provides us an
opportunity to challenge our existing models and refine them. Of course,
since it is internal, no one else need learn that you were wrong! :)
So the complete system consists of competitors competing with themselves
by collaborating with others. Probably this is close to self
actualization?
Warm Regards
Srinath
--Srinath Srinivasa <srinaths@lotus.iitm.ernet.in>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>