It’s a crazy world out there, isn’t it? Yesterday, we had Israel in combat with Iran. Meanwhile, Putin keeps bombing the Ukrainians. In the USA, the Government is constantly at odds with various groups. And here in the UK, planners in Wiltshire wanted to argue about whether a former pub could become a tea room. Wherever you look, there are disputes and one group of people set against another.
I suspect that, like me, you have worked in offices where someone wants to create an “us or them” culture. Arguments and division ensue, which only serve to weaken the organisation and prevent it from thriving. When everyone works together collaboratively, it’s incredible what can be achieved. Ask the folks at the local circus whether it’s a good idea to collaborate or be in conflict, potentially dropping their partner from the trapeze.
All of this came into sharp perspective this week when I attended an event run by The Times newspaper in London. It was a fascinating evening for rugby fans in the run-up to the forthcoming British & Irish Lions tour in Australia. The evening saw two former Lions players, Lawrence Dallaglio and Sam Warburton, in discussion with three sports journalists.
The audience was allowed to ask questions, too, and one question was about the relationships between the players. The team is made up of individuals from England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. Throughout each rugby season, these are sworn enemies. But once selected for the Lions squad, those bitter rivals have to get on with one another.
Lawrence Dallaglio said that the Lions team only works if those rivalries are set aside and each team member is open and honest. He then likened the situation to businesses in competition with each other. He asked if three or four companies had to work together, success would depend upon those firms forgetting they were competitors.
Yesterday morning, while still thinking about those words from the night before, I opened up my news tracker only to find that Marks and Spencer had been helped by its rival Tesco during the aftermath of the recent cyberattack. It reminded me of the examples I use in lectures of competitors that work together.
Apple, for instance, could not have been a success in the mobile phone sector without the help of its rival Samsung, who for many years provided the iPhone screen. Similarly, UPS worked with DHL in the USA to fly parcels around the country. And Boeing and their rival Lockhead Martin have a joint venture in the space sector to compete with Elon Musk. Competing firms clearly can achieve success when they collaborate.
But don’t take my word for it. That’s what Harvard Business Review pointed out almost 40 years ago in the 1980s. That article says that one of the significant benefits of collaboration is what companies learn from each other. That was also a point made in the Times Event about the Lions tour. The players learn a great deal from working together with their rivals.
Competition is good because it provides motivation and can also lead to greater quality and improved pricing for customers. However, it is not the only route to success. Collaborating also leads to benefits, such as learning new ways of working, improving productivity and the development of fresh ideas. Indeed, this was shown in a study from Milan published this week. It found that when teams used the artificial intelligence application “DALL-E” it produced greater creativity and the production of more ideas by the group.
Fighting with your competitors or colleagues in the workplace is a distraction. Working together with them, collaboratively, can achieve so much more than rivalry alone. Indeed, I wonder what would happen if Israel, with all its expertise in nuclear science, were to work together with Iran to help them establish their much-needed power stations. It could be a whole different world.
Next time you eye your competitor warily, ask yourself: What could we achieve by collaborating instead?
