Here’s an interesting challenge faced by one of my entrepreneur clients who’s a senior executive in a financial services firm:

I never expected the competition between myself and the people I work side by side with in the office.  Coming to terms with this and making it less of an issue, including fostering cooperation, has been a challenge.

It’s amazing what happens when resources become scarce and business is under pressure–people becoming competitive, even when they’re on the same team! Come to think of it, this can be true when business is fantastic, too. When I was publisher of a tech magazine in the early ’90s, I would travel around to our offices around the country. At one of them, reps from other magazines in the company kept shredders in their offices to keep “competitive” reps from getting too close to the good info. And there was one office where I was denied copies of the other publication’s Monday paper because they thought I wanted to steal their advertisers! This was at a time when we were more or less sitting back and taking orders and watching business grow exponentially without having to do much work.

So back to my client. How do you foster cooperation among co-workers? It’s a huge question and fits into a category of Emotional Intelligence skills–one in particular: emotional management of others. The skill involves the ability to reduce conflict, inspire productivity and cooperation, and therefore accelerate group performance by positively influencing the moods and emotions of others.

How can you do that in the situation above? Some ideas:

  1. Talk about it. This is the opposite of the natural impulse to avoid. One by one, or in a group, talk about why there is competition among members of the group, what effect it is having on the work environment, and what can be done about it. And whatever you do, if you have a problem with a particular person, don’t go around that person, all passive-aggressivey. Sit down and say what you have to say to them personally. Then don’t take their reaction personally. Their response–good or bad–is not about you, it’s about them.
  2. Be generous. Do things for, and say things to, co-workers that show you care about them. If you hate them and wish they’d get fired, don’t bother with this strategy. But if there’s a kind and generous spirit inside you, let other people see it. Show that you can rise above the fray and not be sucked into letting your  worst instincts take over.
  3. Bake: Is there anything better than when someone brings brownies to the office? C’mon. There is nothing better than that. So go bake something and make friends. Bring cold milk, too.
  4. Go bowling. Or to the zoo, the movies, whatever–go somewhere together as a group and do something every now and then. If you socialize with people it’s much harder to do stuff that hurts them.
  5. Go volunteering. Combine extra-workplace activities with social good works. Help Habitat build a house. Donate services together at a soup kitchen. Do something that gets everyone to realize how petty they are being at times.
  6. Get people focused on the real competition: The bad guys are outside, not inside. Have everyone contribute to a competitive analysis in which each person gives a profile of a competitor and a strategy for dealing with the threat they represent.

What’s your idea to beat the internal competition problem?

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