Competition is good. It’s the bread and butter of every successful team, organization, and nation. Not because it crushes the weak, but because it reveals who we are. It pushes the best to heights never before imagined. It weeds out those who are better suited for critical supporting roles.
Think of the purpose of competition not as a cruel arbiter of the human condition, but as a vast casting call. Every great story needs a hero, a protagonist that represents us all. And when I say, “represents us all,” I mean every part of our being, from our most inspiring potential down to our most vulnerable weaknesses. Picture these competing traits as the multiverse within us. These conflicting notions percolate incessantly within us. Which version of us will emerge in public?
Well, that’s the role of the story’s antagonist. He’s the competition. The character who pushes the protagonist either into tragic oblivion (where the weaknesses win the battle for public exposure) or to greater heights (where the potential is realized, the damsel is saved, the battle is won).
So, for a successful dramatic arc, we need a good guy (protagonist) and a bad guy (antagonist). Furthermore, they must engage in some significant conflict (competition) that drives this story arc.
But rarely does a good story consist only of two characters – a protagonist and an antagonist. In most cases, this would produce a flat narrative. It’s thin, hollow, and devoid of the humanity that makes a tale worth retelling.
That’s why great stories require several supporting characters. These roles function to make the fiction more robust, more lively. Without them, we’re left with a boring tale told in only two dimensions.
These roles are also more specialized than those of the main characters. They need to be. This is because they strengthen a very specific aspect of the leads. A humorous sidekick emphasizes the hero’s humanity or the villain’s evil delight. A wise mentor uncovers the potential of both. A cynical old friend reveals the self-doubt they each have.
The supporting cast fills the protagonist and antagonist with relatable traits. This makes us more empathetic to them. It turns them from cardboard cutouts to three-dimensional bodies of flesh and blood.
To realize their highest ambitions, every team, every organization, every nation needs the same cast of characters in real life. Not everyone can serve as president, but all presidents must have a vibrant cabinet to achieve the objectives they promised.
But who should take on the role of president? And who should fill the cabinet? That’s why we have extended campaigns. That’s why we have an open marketplace where people make choices.
In short, that’s why we have competition. At the voting booth, in the grocery aisle, on our athletic fields.
And it all starts in the elementary school classroom.
My teachers at Big Tree and Woodlawn encouraged competition. Subtly, in first and second grade, more intensely with each higher grade. We waded into the pool.
Mrs. Jackson (first grade) taught that effort brings reward. Miss Wilson (second grade) encouraged us to grasp that doing well wasn’t a one-time thing. Consistency matters. It drives every aspect of life. Mrs. Fitzer (third grade) showed us standards have consequences; that there was a minimum threshold you were expected to meet, and that there were negative consequences if you failed. Miss Powell (fourth grade) taught us how to win with modesty and how to lose with dignity. No matter how hard we try, there will always be winners and losers. Her lesson was simple: learn to do both. Because we will experience both. By the time we got to fifth grade, Mrs. Duly had us in open competition every day. Her stickers, callouts, and leaderboards made competition visible.
Ah, those leaderboards. Classic gamification. Before the word existed. Did they inspire us ten-year-olds to compete? Most assuredly, “Yes!” How else would you explain the class’s addiction to the daily speed test? It got so crazy that, as a reward for being good, the class chose to take another speed test.
How else would you explain it? It wasn’t just the dopamine rush. It wasn’t just about getting the test done as fast and accurately as you could. It was about this: seeing how your name moved up (or down) on the leaderboard and seeing whose name was at the top.
That’s competition in its purest form.
I don’t want to understate the importance of the early-grade training in the ethics of competition. Win or lose, no one complained. No one blamed the rules. No accusations of cheating. No cries of unfair advantage. All losers expected was to be given another chance.
And to congratulate the winners.
The winners, in turn, politely accepted their lot. They understood the glory of victory would be brief. Like what Chuck Knoll once advised after scoring a touchdown: “Act like you’ve been there.”
Mid-year in fifth grade, the family picked up its stakes and moved to Chili. While the competition was friendly and professional at Woodlawn Intermediate, in the classrooms of Florence Brasser, it was raw and brutal. In sixth grade, Mrs. Fish presented a daily “speed test” of a sort. It wasn’t the traditional kind. The questions were more complex. To win, you had to be the first to answer all the questions correctly – with an important catch: you could try as many times as you wanted. So, if you got a question wrong, you could take another stab at it, and keep doing that until you got it correct. As long as you were the first to get all the questions right – no matter how many times you got it wrong – you would win.
Obviously, under these rules, speed mattered more than initial accuracy. Mistakes could be corrected. Lost time could not. It’s one of the first rules of competition: make sure you understand the rules.
So I whipped through these tests, going up four or five times to get my answers checked before many would go up once. Sure, I won almost every day. Was it because I was better at math? Who knows? All I could say was that I was better at following the rules of the game, the rules of competition.
Naturally, someone would complain that I cheated. “It’s not fair, Mrs. Fish. He shouldn’t win! He keeps getting them wrong before he gets them right. That should count against him.”
But Mrs. Fish was old school. She knew what she was doing and why she was doing it. Her curt response: “Nope. He’s following the rules.”
Interesting thing here. The complainers weren’t just trying to change the rules of the game; they were trying to change the game itself. They didn’t want to play “the art of math,” they wanted to play “the art of rhetoric.” When they couldn’t win at calculation, they shifted to persuasion.
Persuasion has its place. But not as a substitute for the rules.
A younger teacher, trained not to hurt students’ feelings, might have listened to their whining not as complaints but as pleas to redefine fairness in the name of buzzwords like “equity” or “social justice.” Not Mrs. Fish. The rugged and experienced educator saw through this ruse and rejected its premise.
Competition remains the bread and butter of every team, every organization, every nation. That means one side will always feel uncomfortable. Good. Discomfort improves all sides. But only if we keep the recipe. Only if we follow the rules.
Imagine what a difference this has on the world. Competition based on calculations produces a culture of inventors, explorers, and all-pro athletes. Competition based on persuasion produces lawyers, politicians, and slippery salesmen.
Which would you rather live in?
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