October, 2005 |
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 Are Rivalries Pointless? Who doesn't know the Chicago White Sox won the World Series of baseball this week? If you don't already know, there is a rivalry in Chicago between the two teams that play there, the White Sox and the Cubs. If you know a Chicago sports fan, they have surely told you who they root for. My friend, Adrienne, pulls for the Cubs. But, when Adrienne's team didn't make it to the playoffs, she began pulling for the 'cross-city rivals, the White Sox. That's neat, if a bit unusual. This got me thinking; are rivalries pointless or meaningful? The Downside Rivalries are pointless when they divide people into groups. Of course, each group tries to assert its dominance over another. Each group tries to "beat" the other. Several years ago, my brother and I attended a NY Jets vs. NY Giants football game. Like the Cubs and White Sox, you are a fan of either one or the other. In the stadium that night, the energy was electric. There was extra security to deal with violence. The yellow-jacketed guards were very busy. My brother and I left early because the guys (yes, they were mostly guys) were quickly dumbing themselves down from shouting words of no more than two syllables and showering each other with beer to physically fighting. In that way, a rivalry is stupid. My favorite team is better than your team is one idea. It might even be supported by statistics. But, the "your team s**ks!" and the range of personally-aimed expletives which tend to accompany that idea do little more than stir the blood. They certainly don't stir one's thinking in any useful way. Rivalries often lead to segregation. In business we don't fight in quite the same way. Instead, we disparage each other's products and services. We gossip about each other. We close our minds down to the possibilities of collaborating. We violate patents. And when we stop thinking, we enter the gray zone of questionable ethics.  The Upside A rivalry is meaningful when it focuses our attention on performing better than normal. It can be a source of positive stress. When I worked at EMC, we considered IBM our rival. The industry and financial media liked to pit us against one another using the word rivals - as if we needed more reminding we were David, they Goliath. At the time, the younger me enjoyed sparring with my IBM marketing rival in the press, each of us trying to out-insult the other. The Best Thing The most useful thing about the Chicago White Sox vs. Cubs rivalry is that many Cubs fans quickly turned to supporting their 'cross-city rivals when the White Sox made the World Series. In fact, there is a great picture of the message, "Congratulations Chicago White Sox" posted on the light-board at Cubs stadium. I like that because it showed an unusual camaraderie. The Cubs management took the high road. They showed a city of 3 million people how to congratulate a neighbor for a job well done. For a few hours, that sign helped bring people together. That's a very good thing. I wonder what would happen in your company if you thought of a competitor as a potential collaborator. I wonder what would happen when the salesperson we are in a rivalry with (maybe a one-sided rivalry?) is asked to share some information about how she does it so well. I wonder what would happen in our families if we refused to see our siblings as rivals and saw them as people to learn from. What could we learn about respect, honor and generosity? In the end, I'm still a bit undecided about how useful rivalries are in everyday life. What I am certain about is this: Any thought or behavior that stirs the blood and shuts off the brain should be changed. back to top |
