Competition gears up

Ask Kevin Lister and Niels Nielson about the value of workplace competition and you get conflicting answers.

While Mr. Lister has thrived in an ultracompetitive environment, climbing to his company's top position in sales, Mr. Nielson had to leave a firm where that atmosphere prevailed - involuntarily, and with hoof prints on his back.

In today's fast-paced, high-tech world, a confident Lister says internal competition is a must. "Each member of the sales force works to carry their own weight, and strives to increase profits each month," says Lister, who has worked for Mindbridge, an intranet-software provider in Norristown, Pa., for the past year. "If you aren't driven to be the best in the sales force, then you are limiting yourself and the company."

Nielson counters that his experience going head-to-head with colleagues at a large food-service firm only serves to illustrate the counterproductive nature of intense internal competition.

"My time was spent on things that did not advance the cause of the employees or the company," says Nielson, who now runs his own human-resources consulting firm in Princeton, N.J.

Like Lister and Nielson, experts hold dramatically different views on the value of competition in the workplace. But this much seems certain: With unemployment on the rise, wage freezes in effect for many who don't advance, and fewer opportunities for promotion, competition among co-workers is growing more intense.

In a recent study commissioned by Accountemps, 55 percent of executives surveyed said competition among co-workers is more prevalent now than it was 10 years ago. The study's authors suggest that the higher productivity levels currently enjoyed by corporate America are being driven by insecurity in the employment market. As such, a growing number of employers are fostering competitive environments.

"In Philadelphia, the job market is very bad," says Scott Testa, chief operating officer of Mindbridge. Like Lister, Mr. Testa attributes his company's consistent sales gains to internal competition. "I am not cold-hearted or mean," he says. "But the theory is that there's competition for your job and if you don't do it, then we'll find somebody else who can."

Experts tend to agree that friendly competition in a sales force can boost productivity and benefit the firm and its employees. In a general sense, creative bickering has a long history of improving work.

"[Albert] Einstein and [Danish physicist] Niels Bohr disagreed about nearly everything, but they were friends," says Howard Bloom, psychologist and author of "Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the Twenty First Century." "Bohr would send Einstein his papers. Einstein would blast the heck out of them," adds Mr. Bloom, in an interview via e-mail.

"Bohr would look at Einstein's critiques, and use them to make the papers stronger," he adds. "Did Bohr write the finished papers on his own? No, he had enormous help from a man who disliked his ideas - Einstein."

Even when collaboration among rivals veers into real competition, the results can be positive.

"Healthy competition encourages positive behaviors such as sharing information, teamwork, [and] reducing waste ... rather than negative behaviors such as hoarding information, withholding successful ideas from others, and 'protecting my turf,' " says Tom Connellan, author of "Bringing Out the Best in Others: Three Keys for Business Leaders, Educators, Coaches, and Parents."

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