Hi and welcome to autumn. Here on the Gold Coast, Queensland we have alternated between wild storms, healthy downpours, clear sunny days and cold winds. Today it is warm and humid. Our dams are nearly spilling over and the gardens are looking very green. Don't you love variety and change?!
In the past month, a coaching client was experiencing internal stormy weather as she challenged the world views she grew up with so that she could arrive at her own independent viewpoint. Her quest coincided with something that I had been thinking about...

Collaboration or competition?

I received an email last month containing a slide show. You know the kind. Beautiful photographs and a meaningful or sentimental storyline. There was one section that told of a particular story from the Seattle Paralympics. Nine intellectually or physically challenged athletes were competing in the 100m race. The story goes to relate how one of the athletes fell during the race, how this affected the others and eventually how the race finished. I have attached the story as a Word doc file so you can read it for yourself. If you want the full slide show, I can send it to you. It might be too big to send with this newsletter for some folk. I tried to verify the story myself but as yet no luck. I have even emailed the author of the slide show to get more details. OK, you could say I'm cynical but I prefer to base my own stories around facts than fiction.

Nevertheless, the story did prompt me to start thinking about collaboration versus competition. Some years ago, the HR Director of a hotel management company, and one of my favourite clients, referred me to the HR Director of a rival company. I felt surprised and delighted and I'm glad to report the referral lead to some projects with the rival company. Being curious about the HR Director's decision to pass my details on, I asked why he did so. It seems he liked my work and he was keen that my efforts could raise the standard of training in other organisations within the same industry. As it turns out, both these HR Directors swapped good resources when they found them on a regular basis. All except, I also found out, any secrets they discovered in the area of sales. That was considered a 'war zone'. Competition ruled here!

In an interview to join a group coaching program I am currently facilitating, I asked the question, 'Would you describe yourself more as 'collaborative or competitive?' There was no right or wrong answer. I was just curious.

As you might expect, the context of the event seems to have a crucial impact on the answer. The point of all of this? I have seen some highly competitive people not know when to collaborate and therefore miss out in a bigger game...and some collaborative people get steamrolled when they could have done better for themselves by being more competitive. Choose your response intelligently. Temperament and intelligence don't have to compete.