The 'C' Word(s)

Let's think about the 'C' word: "competition."

Over the past decade, we constantly hear "competition;" there is global competition for business, competition with students around the world, and the ever-present competition for jobs, for both seekers and employers.

Closer to home, we know our high school seniors have been in competition for spots at Harvard, Swarthmore, and UNH. Many of us roll our eyes at parents who fire up their kids' competiveness to get into the "majors" in little league, the chamber orchestra or the Fessenden School.

To point to an extreme case, we dismiss, fear, or perhaps somewhat buy into the "tiger mom's" view in Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior. (Although I notice that the words "compete" and "competition" never appear in that article, it's clear that this mother insists her kids be number one, at nearly all costs to the kid.)

But once there's a "winner" in the competition, then what? Would you really want to be on the same team as the winner, the "most competitive" person? Would you want them to actually work for you? Buy the house next to yours? Play with your kids?  Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

Luckily there are other 'C' words that are also very imporant: collaboration and cooperation. These are key to most of us in everyday life, and apply to us whether we spend our days with our spouses, at a construction site, Genzyme, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Fenway Park or a public school classroom. We should be demanding more of it from our government leaders, education system, and athletics programs. Make it clear that collaboration is a strength, not a weakness.

In the local government realm, we do see occasional collaborative pushes for regionalization of services, though that is too infrequent and moves too slowly. More often we hear about competition (and tax breaks) to entice specific companies to various towns and away from others.  Recent ones that stand out are Lexington's efforts to snag Shire Pharmaceuticals, and Boston's to lure biotech companies from Kendall Square to South Boston. (In the long run, this did not work out so well with Raytheon and Fidelity.) It's a race to the bottom, not a push for what is a benefit to communities overall.

We can indeed collaborate during disasters – tornado cleanup – and one-off, big-ticket projects such as the moon landing. But too many other things are treated like a competitive event. I've never seen Donald Trump's show or 'American Idol,' but in those, there is one winner, and everyone else is dismissed. Does that actually help anyone else in real life?

Why can't  collaboration be more the focus? In the mundane, day-to-day stuff (i.e., our real lives), it gets us to where we need to be. We'll never see an "America's best team player" award, but every day we need him or her.