Anti-Competitive Practice: why we lose in our race to win
Prepared by Lou Mycroft for AmplifyFE 29.9.22
Introduction - We are Stardust
Good evening. Thank you for coming along. My name is Lou Mycroft and my work is bringing together communities where people can think independently together, moving good intentions into sustainable systems and culture change. I’m accompanied here tonight by my thinking companions. The Bowerbird helps me curate gems of insight from all around me and put them to work. He reminds me that every decision I make should be grounded in my ethics. Spinoza, here in the corner, is the guy who back at the birth of capitalism, reminded us that we are all formed of the same vital, living matter. We share a life-force, and a responsibility to one another. They’ll keep popping up in the presentation.
I found it incredibly difficult to prepare for this presentation. I’ve been thinking, reading and scribbling all summer, and it still took me until this very morning to put the final touches to it. I couldn’t let it go.
I talk about anti-competitive practice all the time and at the same time I find the whole concept overwhelming, because it is so important, so fundamental to deep cultural and systems change. For the past several hundred years (only) we have lived under an economic and political system called capitalism, which pits us against one another in service of ‘the market’. We compete for commodities and we become commodities ourselves. When we resist the inevitability of competition, I firmly believe that we are resisting capitalism too.
Most of the elements of our bodies were formed in stars over the course of billions of years. Joni Mitchell knew that when she wrote Woodstock, back in 1970 (I know I’m in danger of being accused of more hippie stuff when I say that). According to the National History Museum, it’s possible that traces of the hydrogen in our bodies date back to the Big Bang. Now I can’t think about space for very long without it troubling my mental health (not joking) but it seems to me that composition like this is the basis for co-operation, rather than competition.
We’ve had capitalism for, what, 400 years? Around the time that Spinoza was pointing out the folly of separating ourselves from nature, and from each other. We share a life-force and none of us are less or more than each other. But humans have been around way longer than that and we would not still be here if we hadn’t spent most of that time in co-operation.
We can’t co-operate and compete at the same time, at least not effectively. And competition is always at somebody else’s expense. Is that how we want to live? I’d argue that it’s how we live by default.
In this short presentation (and with the help of the Bowerbird to curate my scattered brain) I present three ‘Traps’ of competitive practice and some broad suggestions for how to counter them. I know I will learn much from the discussions that follow.
But first, a couple of caveats. I’m not talking about sport. I love sport. Sport is by nature competitive and I don’t see any problem with that. It is what it is and it’s competition that makes it compelling. I love a good board game too. It doesn’t hurt to have winners and losers in sport and games (and I’m speaking as one who lost on purpose for years because my dad was such a toddler if he didn’t win). But all fitness doesn’t need to be sport, all enjoyment doesn’t need to be games.
Secondly, as I have learned to always say, I’m not telling anyone how to teach. I have no doubt that many of you use elements of competition to bring some fun and jeopardy to the classroom. All I’d ask you is, are you sure that everyone is as up for it as you are? Are you seeing the same winners and losers all the time?
Competitive practice is so endemic to our society that when I started researching anti-competition a few years ago now, I could only find it represented as something negative - bad for ‘the market’, that is. It’s different now. Post-pandemic, business analysts are waking up to the fact that we need different kinds of leadership; it may be that the time for pro-social practice is really here. Researching this presentation, I drew on two books:
No Contest - by Alfie Kohn (well-meaning but boring, tiny print - I pinched his subtitle for this presentation’s strapline).
Together - by Richard Sennett (an old favourite and a must-read for anyone making a case for co-operation).
The Competition Traps
My work is all about finding levers for systems and culture change (in FE). Anti-competitive practice is one. You’ll notice that I use this term rather than the more affirmative ‘cooperation’ (or collaboration). This is because our good intentions don’t always lead to sustainable change. If I asked you whether you worked co-operatively, with students, colleagues etc you’d probably say yes. Yet in practice, if your intentions are genuine, you’ll find your work hampered on a daily basis by the demands of competition. Because they are inscribed into our systems, cultures, processes and hierarchies. I used the word ‘endemic’ about competition earlier. When something is endemic, we barely even notice it any more. We need to call it out. Here are the three traps I’ve curated my thinking into:
The Ego Trap
The Rival Trap
The Systems Trap
The Ego Trap
In everyday life we see the ego trap everywhere, most commonly in the Tommy Toppit. We all know one! Whatever you say, they’ve done one better, immediately turning the conversation to them. I am absolutely sure that someone is coming to mind for you right away. Most recently, I heard a Tommy Toppit close down a story about someone waiting four hours for an ambulance with a tale about someone he knew waiting nine. Where can you go with that? It’s impossible to care if it’s even true.
What’s happening, of course, is that everything triggers their ego. When we are breathing the air of competition, why would it not? And it’s not just the Tommy Toppits. We all struggle with our egos. Keeping it in check is the work we have to do on ourselves in order to do the work of our lives. Role and rank is easy to leave at the door - ego not so much. There’s a brilliant book just out - it’s going to be the focus of the #JoyAM💛 broadcast next week - called The Prepared Leader by Erika James and Lynne Perry Wooten. You may have heard them being interviewed by Brené Brown on the Dare to Lead podcast recently. Their research resonates with so much else that’s coming out of the major business schools recently: “Let go of your ego,” they write, “and be humble enough to allow others to take the lead as the situation dictates.”
Sometimes our ego speaks for us before we even engage our brain. I’ve seen it happen - and I’ve had the messages too, from those of you feeling shame for acting ego-first. There’s no shame in absorbing the messages society gives us about the hustle. But there’s deep joy in resisting it - and getting where we need to be anyway.
The Rival Trap
So this is the thing. For every winner, there’s a loser - or a whole host of losers. The system pits us against one another and we barely even notice. You’re probably here because you’re part of what Chloë Hynes calls the FE Tapestry: people who put energy into working with others, rather than against them. So you’re sold on collaborative working. It’s intentional with you.
Any practice can forget its good intentions when it’s under pressure from the waters we swim in - our culture. It’s super easy to start thinking of individuals as rivals - maybe because they’ve behaved competitively with us. And other organisations literally are market rivals, because that’s how the system works - we compete for students. In 2018 I did a shout to colleges to reach out to their local adult and community learning service. I never heard that ever happened. And when there is ‘partnership working’ - there’s always a boss organisation isn’t there?
The worst place for this is social media. FE is pretty decent, compared to the tank of sharks which is schools Twitter. LinkedIn is becoming ridiculous. I’m not referring to the snidey stuff but to the hustling! Someone asks a question, ten people share their published work which is tangential at best. But it only reflects the culture of our workplaces back to us.
The truth is, our words betray us, despite our good intentions, which leads me to…
The Systems Trap
This is where it all plays out. Anti-competitive practice is literally swimming against the stream, that’s why it’s so exhausting. Competition is built into our systems, not least in the language we use (and I include emojis in that. Whose posts do you take time to like? Who’s posts don’t you bother to comment on?) On social media I notice the guys praising the guys, the white people praising the white people…creating filter bubbles and deepening inequalities tweet by tweet.
Whenever we talk about ‘best’ or ‘better than’, even in relation to ourselves, we are encouraging competition. When we publish league tables, when we norm reference exam results - so that even if everyone does brilliantly, the same proportion still lose out - when we operate under a system which expects us all to be outstanding yet the grading spiral rarely feels encouraging. I haven’t got the latest figures but a few years ago it was on its way down. Is norm referencing happening with Ofsted? No-one will admit it.
When we set up competitions in class (that are more than fun, that relate to significant achievements of the human in some way), when we have Staff or Student of the Year awards, when we roll out the same students as usual suspects to governors etc, we are buying into competition, even when it’s about hard work rather than achievement. How does it feel to not win, year after year? I still resent being told I couldn’t be head girl 40 years ago despite winning the student vote. Do you see the same people getting the kudos? Favouritism. Brené Brown says that when you see favouritism you know you’ve got termites in the walls (we might say ‘woodworm’ in the UK). The incredible hierarchies we have, the tussles over job descriptions, whether you can be called a manager or not - really? Is this the work of our lives? No. Spinoza reminds me that all this noise is a way of making us forget that we are all stardust.
Anti-Competitive Antidote
The answer…is community. Of course it is. The literal opposite of anti-competitive is pro-social. Specifically tonight I’d like us to think about three pro-social practices which build trust - a great way to make the ego seem ridiculous. It’s such a relief to not have to hustle.
Attention
There’s a whole literature around attention and it is one of the ten components of a Thinking Environment. In fact, everywhere you look people are starting to realise that multi-tasking is another great big capitalist lie. Yes we can do it, but as Amishi Jha’s neuroscientific research teaches us, it’s not the best use of our brain capacity. And it will exhaust us. (Less scientific, but equally compelling, is Johann Hari’s book ‘Stolen Focus’.)
Amishi Jha’s research strongly evidences that we can improve our capacity for attention through a regular practice of meditation: 12 minutes a day is the optimum commitment. I’ve found that even I can do this!
As well as developing our capacity for attention, it matters what we pay attention to. Do we turn towards people, rather than turning away - or turning against - them? Brené Brown would couch this differently, she talks about ‘generous assumptions’. The common thread being that we have a choice.
Do you take every opportunity to cite people? (I don’t only mean formally, I also mean tagging people into social media to appreciate their work; giving them a shout out at meetings; not taking people’s ideas as your own). Citation is a political act; don’t ever underestimate the power of going out of your way to show appreciation in this way (and if your reference lists are full of dead white men, time to start branching out. Your citations mean nothing to them any more).
Finally, it matters who you notice and who you don’t. Whose posts do you regularly retweet? Why? Because they are your mate, or because you genuinely want to amplify their voice. Who do you always back up when there’s disagreement?
Something else to consider in communication is that emoji use is subtle and powerful these days and can be exceptionally passive aggressive (put the knife in then follow up with 😂). Thumbs up is brutal!
As we’ve heard, Brené Brown uses the phrase ‘termites in the wall’ to describe how sick an organisation is, when favouritism is rife. Aligned to this is the ‘clique’. A clique doesn’t have to be intentionally toxic, to be excluding. Pay attention to avoiding the formation of cliques, because they are anti-social.
Apology
Apology requires forgiveness on both parts:
Apologise (own, repair, vow to do better)
Forgive (thank, acknowledge, accept)
Begin again.
Apologies built trust and there’s no community without trust. (If you’re not familiar with Christina Donovan’s work around trust and mistrust in FE, check it out. )
By all means apologise if you’ve done something to hurt someone, whether it was intentional or not (if it wasn’t intentional, you’re apologising for being thoughtless).
Don’t apologise if you don’t mean it. No-one should have to apologise for disagreeing with someone. That’s a whole different process of learning to be together, across difference. ‘Disagree agreeably’ as podcasters Rory Stewart and Alistair Campbell would have it. There’s a whole other webinar in this, but a healthy, anti-competitive community is one which can disagree and get over it.
Acknowledgement
Appreciate the person, recognise their work and people will feel valued. Appreciation is from one equal to another and, in Thinking Environment terms, it should be, “sincere, specific and succinct.” It’s different from praise (which can be patronising) and certainly from ‘faint praise’, which in Yorkshire we call a back-hander! It’s also different from saying ‘thank you’, which is what you do when it’s your party. Imagine a ‘thank you’ from the boss when you think you’ve all been working as equals in a team.
Appreciation is powerfully trust building, especially if it’s a consistent part of the culture. We have a sense that trust is difficult to build (especially if we’re not making generous assumptions) and easy to break so it’s good to know there is something you can do intentionally, to build and re-build.
Final Thoughts
Working anti-competitively, pro-socially is one of the most powerfully radical things we can do. It’s a resistance to the grind of life under capitalism. Maybe we can’t stop our organisation hustling for survival, or the dog-eat-dog viciousness of national politics. But we can choose not to be Mean Girls in our own teams and with others. And I really hope we can have a conversation now which will further our togetherness practice, together.
Thank you so much for sharing Lou. Crucial to bring our attention as educators to what's baked in to the the system. In my own work last year, we had a wonderful session with the former chair of the Irish Amateur Boxing Association. For that session we looked quite closely at how we interpret 'competition'. In one element of the session we took out time over the following quote taken from Angela Duckworth:
Compete early 17th century: from Latin competere, in its late sense ‘strive or contend for (something)’, from com- ‘together’ + petere ‘aim at, seek’. “Quite literally it means strive together it doesn’t have anything in its origins about the other person losing” (Duckworth, 2017:265).