Internal Competition

Competition is healthy because it's human nature to want to be the winner. Competition is the incentive to work harder - or smarter, and to come out ahead of the other competitors.


That's useful in many areas of life. For example, in schools it drives the serious students to study a little harder, and in business it helps drive prices down and improve service.


When team work is needed, then competition between team members is almost always destructive.


This is true for families; a guaranteed recipe for a disastrous marriage is to have husband and wife compete with one another instead of working together as a team.


In the workplace, the same applies. It's counterproductive when employees see each other as people to compete against. I've worked at many places, and the less internal competition, the more efficient the business will be and more fun it is to work there.


People who are having fun at work are happy to come to work every day and to do a full day's work.


Teams members who are not in competition with each other are happy to help each other. They also have no issues about constructively criticizing each other's work and ideas. This dramatically improves throughput.


When team members compete with each other they may hide information from each other, which wastes huge amounts of time. In extreme cases they may sabotage one another's efforts. That's already destructive behavior and the business is sure to suffer.


Many things contribute to the internal competitive attitude.


Management is where it all starts. If managers compete with each other, that sets the tone company-wide.


If management creates a huge structure where everybody needs a title - and titles become important - then people will start competing with each other for the titles.


Management should channel the competitive urge towards the real competition: external competitors and potential competitors.


Project managers can help, too. The internal competition should be "everybody" against the "deadline". Pretend that the enemy is the deadline or the amount of open bugs, and create an atmosphere of "we will work as a team against the deadline".


Very often two brains are better then one; 2 sets of eyes are better then one, and having people work in ad-hoc teams doing pair-programming can achieve amazing results. If somebody always has to get the credit, then nobody will want to share.


For this reason it's best not to single out employees as "winners" or "employees of the month" unless they have done something extraordinary. It's best to cheer on the entire team as a unit; they'll gladly all go out together for a meal or a day in the sun - and this will reinforce the team spirit.


Another team-spirit killer is individual goals. People will do everything and anything to meet their personal goals, even at the expense of killing a bigger goal, like a team goal. Team-wide goals are fine as long as they do not create friction between teams.


Even between teams, you do not want unnecessary competition. QA and Engineering should be working together to create the bug-free product. Pitting one against the other achieves nothing. It's most productive when the testers and programmers can sit together; one showing how it can be broken and the other trying to fix it.


So what do you do if you absolutely feel that somebody deserves extra recognition? For example, somebody cleaned the kitchen-area and made it kosher-for-Passover?


The best thing to do is to tell them privately how much you appreciate going the extra mile. You could give them a gift certificate without any fan fare. In a healthy non-competitive environment, they will appreciate the privacy as well as the recognition.


Even when punishment is needed, or a post mortem is called for, it needs to be done at the team-level. More about that in a future post.

- Danny Schoemann

Give credit where credit is due

Typical amateurish management attitude: It's his job, after all. Why does he also need a pat in the back? He gets a salary!


Giving people credit and compliments makes them feel good. People who feel good work better. So the more opportunities you find for complimenting your team, the more you gain.


That's besides the moral aspect; true they are being paid, but if they achieved something they deserve the credit.


Credits can be given in many ways:

• The "about" section can list all the team players; keep it alphabetic to avoid upsetting people.
• Patent applications can list all those involved, even if their idea didn't make the final cut.
• Progress reports can highlight those people who made a difference; rotate the names regularly to have everybody included.
• At company meetings make sure to mention a few people by name.

But beware of adding a prize to the credit:

• If it's not substantial, then it may have the opposite affect:
• After all those extra late nights all I got was a meal for 2?
• It can create internal competition - something we'll discuss in a future post. 
• It can put a monetary value on effort and people will start comparing their effort to their prizes and invariably you will get some unhappy campers.
• When finances get tight the first thing to go will be the prizes; and that's the time you need the most goodwill from your team.

Even sending out a company-wide "Happy Birthday" note to the daily celebrants is a way to make them feel special. If this comes with a birthday gift, then make sure that everybody (in a 6 - 9 months period, if not a full year), get the identical gift.

Another way of giving credit, saying thank you and making every feel appreciated is to occasionally give out freebies. Company T-shirts, pens and other give-aways can do the trick. If you order them for clients or fairs then order enough to also give one to each employee.

Celebrating major milestones or releases is another way to say Thank You to the teams involved. Ordering a cake or having some fun time with some games / quizzes or similar will cost the company 2 - 3 hours and will create the goodwill you need to start the next project with new energy.

Giving credit for non-job related tasks is also effective. Be it for somebody who keeps the coffee area clean or who starts an internal book club or even for somebody who did something outstanding in their private life.

Even though it's not work related, the person deserves a round of applause, and it will make them and their friends feel better - and they will all have a more productive day.

On the other hand, don't overdo it. Sending out a company-wide Bravo email when somebody does a 2 hour fix, is silly and shows that you don't understand the effort that goes into the bigger tasks. If you feel that a particular minor job was well done, then email that person - and her boss - but not the entire company.

Give credit where credit is due, and your team will respond by giving you lots of opportunities to give them credit. It's a win-win deal.

- Danny Schoemann