Not a Zero Sum Game
In team sports, like Baseball, Football, and Basketball, each game (and season) ends with a winner and a loser. Within each team, often an MVP is selected, where the best is chosen, and usually that honor only goes to a select few, i.e., there are winners and there are non-winners.
When someone has to lose for someone to win, that is often called a “zero sum game”.
In business, the equivalent is that if a consumer buys one brand then they are not buying the competing brand. One company wins market share (or a larger piece of the existing pie) while the competitor loses market share (and is left with a smaller piece of the existing pie).
Clearly this is different from the trend in kids’ sports where everyone gets a “participation trophy” so that no one feels bad about losing. There is already a ton of debate out there discussing the pros and cons of this type of reward system, so I won’t reiterate it all here.
In reality, what we probably need is both. We need competition to keep us on our toes, but we also need the internal “participation trophy” that we should award to ourselves for getting out there and giving it our all (if that’s what we did). The “participation trophy” does matter in the sense that clearly we could have chosen to sit on the couch and do absolutely nothing instead.
Our competition or our peers are a useful barometer, but they are only one barometer. The barometer of our internal standards matter just as much because we are the ones who need to look ourselves in the mirror in the morning, and we are the ones who need to be able to live with ourselves in the end.
In terms of finding your purpose, I don’t view this as a zero sum game. There is room for everyone to succeed or win in their dream of choice. The key is how you define winning. If you view what you are doing as being worthwhile to you and to others, then we both win, right? What is there to lose? There are no losers in that kind of win-win game.
Are there winners and losers in what you do? or, Is win-win a concept that is too idealistic in some cases?
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For a list of all posts in this series go to: Finding Purpose (actual links will be posted as each post becomes live.)
