Fred
Even though it may have been I who "queried" Roxanne, and I do consider
myself a "proponent" of "competition," I am afraid I will have to
disappoint you by refusing to offer any "rebuttal."
As I hope I've gotten across in my postings to this thread, I believe
strongly that both "cooperation" and "competition" are essential for
learning and creativity. Ford Rowan's citations only confirm this. They
also indicate that for the great majority of studies, "cooperation" proved
more beneficial. This again doesn't surprise me, as I have always been
taught, and continue to believe, that "cooperation" is the most effective
means of human interaction, on a day-to-day basis. Like many if not most
consultants on this list I have used games, like the "NASA" exercise, to
demonstrate to unreconstructed Taylorite managers that the performance of
groups in solving specific problems is superior to the average performance
of the individuals in the group.
However, I am not at all convinced that this "fact" is fully scalable.
Rather, much as Newtonian physics is incapable of accurately describing
phenomena at either the quantum or the cosmic level, I am coming to
believe (i.e. learning, largely from my exposure to this thread, on this
list) that "cooperation" is a strategy which works only in the middle of
the bell curve. At the microcosmic level, it fails to adequately address
two significant issues:
--amongst the basic human instincts which our genes have given us, there
is at least one that compels us to "compete," in certain situations, with
different degrees of intensity
--the fact that there are 6-sigmas among us, some of whom who will
outperform almost any group on almost any problem, some of whom who will
contribute nothing to (or even negatively affect) any cooperative effort
My experience (and instincts) tell me that even in the most productive
group activities there is substantial "competition" taking place at the
microcosmic level: attention for "share of mind" of higher-ups; advocacy
of alternative solutions; etc. To put in another way, cooperation
implodes when reduced to the "lowest" level.
Alternatively, on the macroscopic side, my experience is that cooperative
efforts tend to break apart or beome less effective when they become too
grand. For example, when like merges with like (airlines, nationalised
steel companies). Or when efforts are made to create larger cooperative
entities which incorporate "naturally" competitive elements (business
conglomerates, centrally planned nation states).
Enough rambling for the time being. I'm still working on these thoughts.
All I think I really know just now is that competition and cooperation is
not an "either-or" pairing. It is an "and/or" one. Today's latest post
from David Hurst (LO17887) I think makes the same point very intriguingly
(and more eloquently). I'd recommend it to one and all.
Cheers
Richard Goodale
Managing Partner
The Dornoch Partnership
"Discovery, Creativity, Leadership"
> A while back, Roxanne Abbas was queried regarding evidence supporting
> her assertion that cooperation was superior to competition. I don't
> recall how she responded, but I've come across some evidence that I'll
> share with the list.
>
> I recently attended a retreat for the top 70 managers of the company
> where I have my "day job" (Educational Testing Service). One of the
> presentations was by Ford Rowan, a former NBC news reporter and partner
> in the firm of Rowan & Blewitt. He was stressing the importance of
> cooperation over competiton and cited the following figures:
--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>