How To Channel Your Competitive Streak In The Workplace

When does that competitive streak become a hindrance rather than a help?

A little competition is always healthy, in fact, its what has driven my career to date. But when does that competitive streak become a hindrance rather than a help? I personally believe that competition is about motivating yourself, following your passion, and driving yourself towards your ambitions. But it’s also about knowing what is and isn’t worth fighting for. The key to making your competitive nature a positive attribute is to understand and embrace it rather than allow it to work against you.

Some people are inherently competitive, it’s just in their genes, i.e. the “Type A’s” of this world who tend to be a tad more on the obsessive side when it comes to working matters. However, everyone has felt that streak at some point — whether that’s during a game of tennis or racing your friend to the finish line at the end of a cycle. You don’t have to feel super competitive 24/7 to still get derailed now and then, and this is something that needs to be curtailed if it isn’t managed correctly.

Research from “Top Dog: The Science of Winning and Losing” has cited that:

• 25% of people aren’t affected by competition
• 25% simply do not thrive in competitive environments
• 50% benefit from competition

So where have these conflicting results come from? The most obvious conclusion from this research is that no single individual is the same. Some people work well in pressurized environments and others need a calm and quiet space to work to the best of their abilities.

It takes a very good manager to put together and manage a team that has a combination of these styles and create a workspace that provides a way for all of them to perform optimally. This is actually something that I think we do very well in Buckets and I’m sure it’s prevalent in many distributed/flexible working teams that encourage autonomy and utilize task management software

The key to managing a competitive nature is to ensure that it benefits you instead of working against you. Especially in the workplace. Here are a few tips for doing so:

Compete With Yourself: This is something I learned a long time ago, in a gym actually, not a workplace! If you learn how to compete with your own previous achievements and performances, rather than with other people, you’ll be; A. a much nicer person to be around, and B. a lot less defensive. In addition to that, your own potential is limitless so you will always progress which is a great way to stay motivated.

If you do start to compete with others (as we all do from time to time) try to look at it from a more inclusive point of view. How can you create healthy competition amongst your peers that brings out the best in them and results in optimal results for your organization? Your interactions in this kind of situation are really important also.

Make sure that you don’t talk down to your colleagues or parade your “wins” as some kind of trophy in the office. That’s the kind of thing that turns friendly competition into an outright office morale sinker.

Help People Out: It’s time to change your nature and basically become a better person. Taking time to talk with your colleagues when they’re struggling is a win-win situation. Firstly, you get that warm glow inside from knowing you’ve done something good and, secondly, helping others will ensure you avoid portraying that “ruthless” competitive image. It’ll also help your career big-time when it comes to management promotion. But for this to happen, you have to invest time and effort into improving and maintaining real and transparent communication amongst your peers.

Remember, when you improve a colleagues performance it can only reflect well on you. Being good at your job is great, but also being good with people is the holy grail of being a great manager.

Teamwork: A very significant amount of human accomplishment arises from coordinated group work, i.e. people who collaborate to achieve a common goal. But teamwork can be tough work for the competitive soul. Why? Well, psychologists have long discovered a universal human need to belong to groups, but the problem is that people don’t work well with each other all of the time either.

One of the key sabotagers of team spirit is individual interest, which leads people to compete with teammates rather than rival team members. This in-team competitiveness can often make other team members feel edgy, territorial, and at risk of losing, which is a stressful way to be!

There are a number of things such as lack of expertize, incompatible values, or a different working style that could make an individual a bad match for a particular team. The best leaders are those who can choose the right people for the right tasks and inspire them to focus on the overall goals of the group and move them away from their own personal agendas. In fact, the ability to build these well-balanced teams is a massive skill in itself and the sign of a great leader.

Collaboration: This is the key to good teamwork but it does take work. By collaborating, you can build upon each other’s strengths within a team which is a great way to naturally develop respect and a general sense of ease. Co-workers become allies rather than competitors and you see each other’s strengths as a resource to be utilized rather than challenged.

Work On Yourself: Insecurity can really drive you to compete with others and the best way to combat this is to focus on your strengths. Think about everything that makes you good at what you do; your personality, your skills, and your experiences. By looking at yourself as a whole, unique individual, it will be much harder for you to compare yourself to others on your team. And — likewise — it will become easier to let them shine when appropriate and share in their successes.

Confidence can have a massive impact on how you behave at work and if you can learn to master it you won’t feel like you have to prove anything to anyone anymore. It’s all about knowing your worth.

Advocate For Yourself Without Being An Ass: We all know someone who drones on and on and on and about their collective lifetime achievements. Do you really want to be that person? Let me answer that for you: no. No, you don’t. But that doesn’t mean becoming a wallflower either. If you don’t speak up and advocate for yourself, your efforts may simply go unnoticed.

So in order for your career to soar without winding people up in the process, it’s important to deliver news of your latest accomplishments at the right time and in the right place, which could be in a Slack group or a 1-to-1 meeting — something like that, i.e. not in a weekly company email listing everything you’ve excelled in that week.

You can be successful and be seen, acknowledged, and appreciated in the workplace without tearing others down. You just have to take the time to analyze your interactions and handle it the right way.

It Won’t Take Long To See Your Competitiveness Become More Effective Vs Defective

The main step forward in changing your competitive style is to acknowledge that it may not be optimal right now. The key is to be transparent about your goals and ambitions and admit your faults, which can diffuse any kind of tension in a team immediately as you’re showing an awareness of the downsides to your nature. This will help you to maintain a healthy relationship with your colleagues as they begin to understand you better rather than becoming frustrated with your actions.

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