“We win, you lose” is a familiar mantra in the world of sports. At the end of the game, one team trots around triumphantly, the other hang their heads. This season, the Edmonton Oilers triumphed over the Vancouver Canucks to punch their ticket to the Stanley Cup quarterfinals. Only one team could advance. This time it was Edmonton.
Sports epitomizes the scarcity mindset. After all, there have only been one gold, silver or bronze medal handed out 99.7% of the time for each event in the Summer Olympic Games since 1896.
The 0.3%, and not the 99.7%, is what interests me. There have been shared winning medals handed out 0.3% of the time.
Some of you may be thinking “Why on earth would we share medals?! If I win, how can you win too?”
Why indeed? What benefits can medal sharing possibly enable? According to one study, more medal sharing would:
- Reward more athletes for their years of dedication to sport
- Reward more supporters, organizations and countries they represent
- Result in more medal-dependent investment in sports
- Improve the entertainment value of the Olympics
- Augment the Olympic ideal of fair play
If winning medals can be shared in competitive sports, why not in business?
At the business to business (B2B) level, this can result in “coopetition”, a level of cooperation and collaboration between business competitors with the hope for mutually beneficial results. There are many examples of coopetitors like Samsung and Apple in the smart phone business. While both are fierce competitors, Samsung also happens to cooperate with Apple by supplying many smartphone components to Apple. 💰Win-win💰.
While common at the B2B level, I continue to be amazed at how rare it is within a single business. Internal competition with little to no cooperation is alive and well.
As an Agile Coach, I’m always challenging my clients to connect-the-dots and align their efforts and results across the organization.
“How does what you do within your sphere of influence help others outside your sphere?”
The usual response I get either directly or implied is:
“Why would anyone want to do that?”
What might stand in the way? Plenty. Here are a few obstacles I’ve seen:
- Rewards and recognition for individual achievements continue to outweigh those for group achievements.
- Lack of clear organizational level goals to rally everyone around.
- Vertical empire building is easier and less risky than horizontal partnership building.
- Leaders who are more interested in personal glory than communal success.
- Conway’s law is alive and well and so are its Frankenstein-ish products.
In general, there are often more forces that blind us to each other than bind us to each other. It sure feels like a “win-lose, dog-eat-dog, every-man-or-woman-for-themselves” scarcity mindset.
So, how might we overcome these obstacles? The key is to start small and build from there. Here are a few ways I’ve tried:
- During Program Huddles (c.f. Scrum of Scrums) spend less time on how individual teams are doing and more time on how the collective program is doing in realizing its committed benefits.
- Clarify what the scope of a “product” is and by the way, for a software product, the product is not just the software.
- If the business case benefits realization numbers are 3-4 years out, what’s preventing us from defining and measuring interim lead metrics 2 years out?, 1 year out?, 6 months out?
- If the sprint retrospective tool you’re using only supports an individual-based check-in activity, why stop there? Add a team-based check-in activity.
- If a leader asks “Where are we going with all these roadmaps?”, help them understand how they might all lead to Rome.
If we can overcome “win-lose” thinking with “win-win” thinking in sports and business-to-business competition, why not do the same within our own business?
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