“Life is a race” or “ Life is a marathon” and many such quotes can be found across the web. It seems like as humans we have to win at life and it’s like a mandatory duty to deem others in this so-called “race” as competitors.
What if these competitors were called contributors instead? As a brand or corporate employee, you always have a third eye on your potential “competition” and observe their actions quite closely. Your actions like marketing campaigns, team management, policies are influenced by your competitors’ actions in many different ways. So the way I see it, your competitor is practically contributing to your present and future. And if your plans succeed, well your “contributor” did contribute to that!
Let’s revisit one of my coaching experiences that was the source of this thought process:
Coachee: My peer in the same team refuses to cooperate with additional tasks and the burden falls on me. We both are parallels and it’s clear that he’s trying to distract me from promotion as we both are pitched for the same position.
Coach: I hear you. What makes you believe that he is doing it on purpose?
Coachee: I don’t know. It just seems like that. I mean if I can carry out additional work, can’t he?
Coach: Maybe, maybe not. How are you so sure that he can handle any additional workload?
Coachee: Hmm. I think he’s competent. I mean, there have been times that we had insights about each other’s reports and it had a positive impact on both of us.
Coach: Thanks for sharing that! So I hear that he may be competent but he surely contributed to improving your reports. So, the same question, what makes you think he’s doing it on purpose?
Coachee: Hmm (pauses for a good 2 mins). I think a part of me assumed that just because he’s in the same race, he would purposefully make my life difficult.
Coach: That’s an important awareness! What else?
So? If you like this “What If!”, then apply it in your daily life and replace words like competition and competitors with contribution and contributors. Let me know how that goes for you…
innOgru SPRINT Coaching harnesses such mindset shifts to enable better collaboration and develop a culture of embracing change across the organization!
Vaidant Jain
