Richard Hills wrote:
> Roxanne Abbas wrote:
>
> >I can understand that within formal competitive situations, the
> >participants must cooperate on setting the rules of the game, i.e. we all
> >agree not to intentionally cause physical injury to the opponent. I
> >cannot understand how within a competitive situation participants would
> >actually help their rivals or strive to work cooperatively for what
> >Webster calls "mutual benefit". Did Dean Smith, North Carolina basketball
> >coach, often counsel his arch-rival at Duke? If a Coca-Cola chemist was
> >having trouble with the beverage formula, would he call Pepsi for help?
>
> Counselling arch-rivals is an everyday situation.
...snip...
I concur with Richard but would like to offer a direct example linked to
Roxanne's post. Dean Smith (and I apologize to those who dislike sports
analogies) recently retired. He was lauded by many other coaches as the
man who had done more than any other to promote basketball, to teach
others. Smith was able to both cooperate and compete. (Much like Richard
Hills' chess champions.) There are many other such stories of competitors
who become cooperators once they are outside of the arena even though they
will face each other again. (One of Smith's arch-rivals is also one of his
best friend: John Thompson, Coach of Georgetown.)
I raise this example because it suggests to me again that we have not
found the full context for this issue. There may be more at play here than
cooperate OR compete, appraise or don't appraise. That is one of the
problems with Kohn's work for me. It is too doctrinaire; it does not
admit to the variety of human experience.
--"T.J. Elliott" <tjell@IDT.NET>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>