Most people equate the business life to “swimming with the sharks without being eaten alive”, whether this is about running an enterprise or advance individual career in a big corporation. Here was a humor that I picked up from Reader’s Digest a while back:
One weekend, a doctor, a priest and an attorney were out in a fishing boat.Their motor had conked out and one of the oars had drifted off. Just as the doctor was about to dive in to retrieve the oar, the boat was surrounded by harks
“I can’t go now,” the doctor said. “If someone gets bitten, you’ll need my services.”
“I can’t go either,” said the priest. “If the doctor fails, I’ll need to give last rites.”
“Fine,” said the attorney. “I’ll get it.”
He dove in, the sharks moved; he retrieved the oar and climbed back into the boat. The doctor and priest looked flabbergasted.
The attorney just smiled and said,”Professional courtesy.”
It is sometimes difficult to see our potential or real competitors as our friends since they can prevent us achieving our enterprise success or advancing our career. However, the attorney in the humor seems to strike something worth our thoughts. Wouldn’t it be nice to treat our competitors the way we want them to treat us? Like playing a ball game, we want to win with our skills and win at the court in a professional way. After all, we all grew up having our parents and teachers told us that sportsmanship is far more important than winning or losing.
A somewhat old, but nonetheless highly acclaimed leadership development book “Leadership Secrets of Attila The Hun” by Dr. Wess Roberts shed some light on how to win over our competitors.
The book is about a man name Attila (406-53 AD) who centuries ago turned groups of tribal nomads called the Huns into one of the greatest fighting nation of the ancient world. The Huns were essentially a nomadic, multiracial and multilingual conglomeration of fierce and warlike tribes originated from the European side of the Urals or from Turkic or Asiatic descent. The Huns, under Attila’s win-directed, take charge leadership, took possession of a large territory lying north of the River Danube. Even though Attila and his theories on leadership are from the prehistoric time they still hold strong relevance in modern day management and leadership. You can find out more about Attila and the Huns from Wikipedia. Attila laid the following principles in one of the book’s chapter:
- Do not expect everyone to agree with you – even if you are king.
- Do not waste stamina trying to negotiate with implacable, uncooperative enemies – conquer them by more effective means.
- Do not consider all opponents to be enemies. You may have productive, friendly confrontations, with others inside and outside your tribe.
- Do not try to conform everyone’s behavior unless doing so is critical to tribal discipline or purpose.
- Do not delegate an assignment and then attempt to manage it yourself – you will make an enemy of the overruled subordinate.
- Do not lose your temper without advantageous reason.
- Do not underestimate the power of the enemy no matter how great or small, to rise against you on another day.
- Do not make enemies who are not worthy of your every effort to render them into a state of complete ineffectiveness.
- Do not insult unless you mean it.
Some other quotes on competing smartly:
- “Never wrestle with a pig. You get dirty and only the pig enjoys himself.” - Mark McCormack, U.S. entrepreneur, founder and CEO of IMG.
- “A prosperous competitor is often less dangerous than a desperate one.– Harry J. Nalebuff, U.S. author, Co-opetition.
- Being challenged in life is inevitable, being defeated is optional.” - Roger Crawford
Fundamentally, the best outcome of competing smartly is to seek “win-win”. It seems corny to say so, but there is a truth when his holiness Dali Lama educated us that we human beings fundamentally want other beings to be happy, too. The compassion is what lies naturally within us. Our winning does not have to be at the expense of others. Like Cornel West pointed out,
“Humility means two things. One, a capacity for self-criticism… The second feature is allowing others to shine, affirming others, empowering and enabling others. Those who lack humility are dogmatic and egotistical. That masks a deep sense of insecurity. They fell the success of others is at the expense of their own fame and glory.”
Abraham Lincoln agreed, “The best way to destroy an enemy is to make a friend.” It is only through ethical competition and professional courtesy that we can ultimately transform the greed and win-it-all culture that breed so many morally corrupted sharks in our business today.
