Is Competition Zero-Sum?

[hspder]

So, as promised in another thread, I’d like to start a discussion on this question:

“Is Competition Zero-Sum?”

To clarify the question:

This IS NOT about the merits or needs of competition by itself; Competition exists wherever there’s life; Life competes with each other to stay alive, and there’s nothing wrong with that. People also compete to get jobs, for example.

The question IS about if competition generates a TOTAL outcome for the people (or generically, entities) competing that is higher or lower than if they were not competing.

For example:

Is the competition between TEAM-MATES good (positive) bad (negative) or zero-sum for the TEAM as a WHOLE?

Too clear of an answer? So I’ll make it greyer:

Is the competition between CO-WORKERS good (positive) bad (negative) or zero-sum for the COMPANY as a WHOLE?

The reason I’m bringing this now is that I’ve observed that lately the stances that people have around competition have been very much polarized (as almost anything in this country these days), so I wanted to initiate a discussion that tries to have a more organized approach to the problem rather than simply giving a blanket statement that “it’s good” or “it’s evil” without actually thinking it through (I get that a lot from my students lately, and it’s becoming more and more tiresome).

Let the discussion begin…

[elars21]

Competition will almost always be positive in both situations you mentioned. The players will push themselves harder to be the best-both that the can be and on their team. As long as the ideal of team comes first is in place than it’s rarely a problem.

Many of the greats like Jordan  have "fights" for lack of a better word, almost every practice with teammates. Competition also is a great learning tool, causing you to evaluate the other person, which allows you to better evaluate yourself. 

[tonymoore]

My answer to this question would be the always horrible…“It depends”.

If the competitors both strive to achieve more than they would have otherwise then there’s a net gain and the competition is positive (everybody wins). If one achieves more at the expense of the other then it’s zero sum. And if both (or the team) perform worse as result of the competition then it’s negative.

This whole competition “good or bad” thing can go too far. There was a story on a current affairs show here in Australia last night where junior swimmers were no longer to actually compete in races. They would still race, but there would be no recognition of who won or got a place because this was deemed to be unkind and detrimental to those kids who lost. To my way of thinking what this removal of competition does is remove the desire to win. The kids won’t try as hard and will all be crappier swimmers as a result.

[BostonBarrister]

[quote]hspder wrote:
So, as promised in another thread, I’d like to start a discussion on this question:

“Is Competition Zero-Sum?”

To clarify the question:

This IS NOT about the merits or needs of competition by itself; Competition exists wherever there’s life; Life competes with each other to stay alive, and there’s nothing wrong with that. People also compete to get jobs, for example.

The question IS about if competition generates a TOTAL outcome for the people (or generically, entities) competing that is higher or lower than if they were not competing.

For example:

Is the competition between TEAM-MATES good (positive) bad (negative) or zero-sum for the TEAM as a WHOLE?

Too clear of an answer? So I’ll make it greyer:

Is the competition between CO-WORKERS good (positive) bad (negative) or zero-sum for the COMPANY as a WHOLE?

The reason I’m bringing this now is that I’ve observed that lately the stances that people have around competition have been very much polarized (as almost anything in this country these days), so I wanted to initiate a discussion that tries to have a more organized approach to the problem rather than simply giving a blanket statement that “it’s good” or “it’s evil” without actually thinking it through (I get that a lot from my students lately, and it’s becoming more and more tiresome).

Let the discussion begin…[/quote]

Generally, I’d say only in the case in which things cannot be created – the “zero-sum game” scenario requires a fixed “pie”, so that the only way one person can increase his share is at the expense of another.

If people can create, then competition can spur the creation of a bigger pie.

With regard to your scenarios of intra-team or intra-company competition, I’d say that competition can promote excellence – but, depending on the situation and how the rewards are set up, it can also be counterproductive to the idea of synergistic collaboration.

For instance, if I am competing with my friend to see who gets a bigger bonus at the end of the year, and it’s based on hours worked and his bonus will not affect mine, perhaps that competition will push me to bill more hours than I otherwise would. I might ask for bigger projects that require more weekend work, or other such things than I would if I were just thinking in terms of my own utility preference of the extra dollar versus more free time.

However, if it’s set up so every dollar of bonus he gets is a dollar taken away from mine, then that virtually guarantees some level of sabotauging behavior will occur (not between us necessarily, but assuming this is a big firm and each person faces the same situation), which will negatively affect productivity and/or quality.

Play with the parameters more and you can do various things with the likely outcome, just based on a game-theory model.

To sum it all up, I need to give you the classic lawyer answer: it depends.

[hspder]

[quote]elars21 wrote:
Competition will almost always be positive in both situations you mentioned. The players will push themselves harder to be the best-both that the can be and on their team. As long as the ideal of team comes first is in place than it’s rarely a problem.

Many of the greats like Jordan  have "fights" for lack of a better word, almost every practice with teammates. Competition also is a great learning tool, causing you to evaluate the other person, which allows you to better evaluate yourself. [/quote]

Try not to focus too much on sport. And even if you do, if you want NBA, think LA Lakers.

Does that change your mind? It doesn’t have to, I’m just making sure you’re thinking it through…

[Joe_Weider]

[quote]hspder wrote:
elars21 wrote:
Competition will almost always be positive in both situations you mentioned. The players will push themselves harder to be the best-both that the can be and on their team. As long as the ideal of team comes first is in place than it’s rarely a problem.

Many of the greats like Jordan  have "fights" for lack of a better word, almost every practice with teammates. Competition also is a great learning tool, causing you to evaluate the other person, which allows you to better evaluate yourself. 

Try not to focus too much on sport. And even if you do, if you want NBA, think LA Lakers.

Does that change your mind? It doesn’t have to, I’m just making sure you’re thinking it through…[/quote]

I’m not sure how the Lakers fit in here?
Now, I don’t really care for the NBA anymore, so I’m in no way sure of what I’m saying…but!
When the Lakers had Shaq and Kobe who by all accounts hated each other and were in constant competition with each other, they won b2b champeenships.
Once Kobe managed to “win” the competition by eliminating Shaq and whats his name, the coach…where are they now?
What’ve I missed?

[hspder]

[quote]tonymoore wrote:
My answer to this question would be the always horrible…“It depends”.
[/quote]

Great post. I believe you started on the right foot. I actually believe you need to start your thinking at “It depends”, or you’ll find yourself in a ditch very quickly.

[quote]tonymoore wrote:
If the competitors both strive to achieve more than they would have otherwise then there’s a net gain and the competition is positive (everybody wins). If one achieves more at the expense of the other then it’s zero sum. And if both (or the team) perform worse as result of the competition then it’s negative.
[/quote]

Good thinking.

Now, how often each one of the scenarios you mention happens? I mean, what’s the split between them? Is there any relationship between the areas and the end result, i.e., is one scenario more probable, say, in sport, while other say, in an office?

[quote]tonymoore wrote:
This whole competition “good or bad” thing can go too far. There was a story on a current affairs show here in Australia last night where junior swimmers were no longer to actually compete in races. They would still race, but there would be no recognition of who won or got a place because this was deemed to be unkind and detrimental to those kids who lost.[/quote]

Yes, it was exactly those kinds of events that triggered my post…

[quote]
To my way of thinking what this removal of competition does is remove the desire to win. The kids won’t try as hard and will all be crappier swimmers as a result.[/quote]

Now think about this: if the removal of the reward does indeed remove the desire to win, isn’t there something wrong with the kids? Shouldn’t bettering themselves, i.e., becoming better and better at what they do be the motivating factor?

Or maybe that’s naive? And if it is, why? I mean, LOTS of people on T-Nation clearly achieve great, even fantastic, results without having a greater reward than the way they feel and look at the mirror. So is your observation because you think the coaches are unable to motivate them that way? Isn’t that then something to work on with the coaches, instead of the quick fix?

Isn’t this basically the same thing as saying that going on steroids so you’re able to eat crap is actually not that bad, considering the “unrealistic” alternative is eating right and training hard?

[hspder]

[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
Generally, I’d say only in the case in which things cannot be created – the “zero-sum game” scenario requires a fixed “pie”, so that the only way one person can increase his share is at the expense of another.

If people can create, then competition can spur the creation of a bigger pie.

With regard to your scenarios of intra-team or intra-company competition, I’d say that competition can promote excellence – but, depending on the situation and how the rewards are set up, it can also be counterproductive to the idea of synergistic collaboration.

For instance, if I am competing with my friend to see who gets a bigger bonus at the end of the year, and it’s based on hours worked and his bonus will not affect mine, perhaps that competition will push me to bill more hours than I otherwise would. I might ask for bigger projects that require more weekend work, or other such things than I would if I were just thinking in terms of my own utility preference of the extra dollar versus more free time.

However, if it’s set up so every dollar of bonus he gets is a dollar taken away from mine, then that virtually guarantees some level of sabotauging behavior will occur (not between us necessarily, but assuming this is a big firm and each person faces the same situation), which will negatively affect productivity and/or quality.

Play with the parameters more and you can do various things with the likely outcome, just based on a game-theory model.

To sum it all up, I need to give you the classic lawyer answer: it depends.[/quote]

Really good stuff, man, I appreciate it.

I quoted your post integrally, just because I wanted to make sure people read it. Twice.

You even mentioned Game Theory, which is exactly where this gets interesting (specifically, because this is one of the main points where Micro-economy and Game Theory intersect but have different approaches). Good call – I wish every coach and manager out there realized that too and picked a few Game Theory books up rather than taking the shotgun approach.

If you can read my previous post (just before this one) and comment on that too, I’d really appreciate it…

[hspder]

[quote]Joe Weider wrote:
I’m not sure how the Lakers fit in here?
Now, I don’t really care for the NBA anymore, so I’m in no way sure of what I’m saying…but!
When the Lakers had Shaq and Kobe who by all accounts hated each other and were in constant competition with each other, they won b2b champeenships.
Once Kobe managed to “win” the competition by eliminating Shaq and whats his name, the coach…where are they now?
What’ve I missed?[/quote]

Precisely my point – it worked short term but it blew up long term, i.e., short term you had a positive outcome, but in the long term it had catastrophic effects (sorry for the strong adjective, but I was a longtime Lakers fan).

[Joe_Weider]

[quote]hspder wrote:
Joe Weider wrote:
I’m not sure how the Lakers fit in here?
Now, I don’t really care for the NBA anymore, so I’m in no way sure of what I’m saying…but!
When the Lakers had Shaq and Kobe who by all accounts hated each other and were in constant competition with each other, they won b2b champeenships.
Once Kobe managed to “win” the competition by eliminating Shaq and whats his name, the coach…where are they now?
What’ve I missed?

Precisely my point – it worked short term but it blew up long term, i.e., short term you had a positive outcome, but in the long term it had catastrophic effects (sorry for the strong adjective, but I was a longtime Lakers fan).
[/quote]

out of curiosity, in competition, what’s long term?
I mean, the goal is to win. Whether that’s get the biggest bonus or biggest trophy. The competition on the Lakers drove them to be very successful, but it blew up. Now, did it blow up because of the nature of competition, or the human nature? And is there a seperation? I think there is, because I know many people who aren’t competitive at all.

I’m probably not making a lot of sense here–see apparently I suffer from a profound lack of intelligence, but I am trying.
(sarcasm oozes from every pore.)

[hspder]

[quote]Joe Weider wrote:
out of curiosity, in competition, what’s long term?
I mean, the goal is to win. Whether that’s get the biggest bonus or biggest trophy.[/quote]

Exactly. And that’s why competition can be self-destructive if mis-managed. Because the goal is to win NOW, and it shouldn’t be. It should be to achieve excellence.

Think about it like if it were your life: are you willing to sacrifice your retirement and live on the streets when you’re 65 in order to have a very luxurious life right now? Or would you rather have a slightly less luxurious life – but still a very comfortable one – but be able to enjoy a nice retirement?

Or, using a more T-Nation example:

Which one would you rather be: the guy who eats whatever he wants all his life but dies at 55 with a heart attack, or the guy who curbs his cravings and lives to be a healthy 95?

That’s what I meant by short-term vs long-term.

[quote]Joe Weider wrote:
The competition on the Lakers drove them to be very successful, but it blew up. Now, did it blow up because of the nature of competition, or the human nature? [/quote]

My belief is that it blew up because Phil Jackson (the Lakers coach) mismanaged Kobe’s and Shaq’s competitive personalities and let competition become counterproductive – he sacrificed the team’s future to get a quick buck now. I don’t think that’s T-Man behavior. A T-Man would try to win but in a way that the Lakers would be winning title after title after title for at least a lifetime. A T-Coach would try to create a GOOD TEAM rather than a bad team with good results.

It’s not only in sports. BB presented some very good examples in his own field.

[quote]Joe Weider wrote:
And is there a seperation? I think there is, because I know many people who aren’t competitive at all.[/quote]

I couldn’t agree more. And interestingly, looking at the people I’ve known my whole life, I haven’t observed any correlation between their competiveness and their success, i.e., the most successful are not necessarily the most competitive (and vice-versa).

There is, however, a huge correlation between their drive to better themselves (irrespective of having competition or not or being competitive or not) and both the quality of their life and their happiness level.

[Joe_Weider]

how would you have done it if you were phil jackson?
Or, to be more general, how does one manage competitiveness so it doesn’t flame up?

[hspder]

[quote]Joe Weider wrote:
how would you have done it if you were phil jackson?
Or, to be more general, how does one manage competitiveness so it doesn’t flame up?[/quote]

Simple: you don’t reward a player if their happiness and/or success comes at the detriment of others in the same team. You don’t reinforce that behavior. You punish it.

Basically, if a player “gets off” at hogging the ball, or chastizing other players, you punish him. You do NOT reinforce it.

And you never EVER let ANY player think they are, or should be, the “boss” of the team. That sense of entitlement has to be punished too.

Kobe should have either been corrected or fired from the Lakers ages ago. The guy might know how to bounce a ball, but he has a terrible attitude problem that has been reinforced by everyone, rather than punished.

Michael Jordan was a prime example of a outrageously good player that was able to be humble and work torwards the benefit of the team. MJ likes competing, but he knows who to compete against – the OTHER team. He’s not the kind of guy who gets off at squashing and bossing around others in the same team. He didn’t have to FIGHT to be a superstar.

Phil Jackson was spoiled by that. When he encountered players that are good indidually, but essentially spoiled, braty, prima-donnas, he didn’t immediately punish their behavior, because he didn’t recognize it as wrong… Or maybe he did, but wasn’t allowed to do something about it by the Lakers’ management. Bad idea.

[rainjack]

Okie-dokie, then…I’ll give this a shot. But first, two questions.
1.) Will this be on the final?
2.) Are we being graded on grammar?

Where there is a game, there will be competition. There is no good or bad competition - only bad games.

Man’s inherent desire to win is never unhealthy, or catostrophic. I believe it is instinct. We have been playing games since we’ve been walking upright.

Now - the game can be corrupted, giving the appearance of unhealthy competition - i.e. the Lakers, or a sales contest that is zero sum like BB alluded to. But once again, competition is pure and, given a pure game, never zero sum.

[miniross]

ohh, good post.

are you into game theory then???

Competition per se is not zero sum, e.g. wars are not zero sum, and neither is a trade.

Sport tends to be zero sum, however, an individual event of sport/competition is uklikely to be zero sum.

let me explain.

When i was competing in MMA i lost my final. this was a big dissapointment. however, post evnt i copped off with a nice young and nubile lady.

is this zero sum, i dont believe so, i lost the fight but lets be honest, the main reason i ever did comps paid off!

[miniross]

[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
hspder wrote:
So, as promised in another thread, I’d like to start a discussion on this question:

“Is Competition Zero-Sum?”

To clarify the question:

This IS NOT about the merits or needs of competition by itself; Competition exists wherever there’s life; Life competes with each other to stay alive, and there’s nothing wrong with that. People also compete to get jobs, for example.

The question IS about if competition generates a TOTAL outcome for the people (or generically, entities) competing that is higher or lower than if they were not competing.

For example:

Is the competition between TEAM-MATES good (positive) bad (negative) or zero-sum for the TEAM as a WHOLE?

Too clear of an answer? So I’ll make it greyer:

Is the competition between CO-WORKERS good (positive) bad (negative) or zero-sum for the COMPANY as a WHOLE?

The reason I’m bringing this now is that I’ve observed that lately the stances that people have around competition have been very much polarized (as almost anything in this country these days), so I wanted to initiate a discussion that tries to have a more organized approach to the problem rather than simply giving a blanket statement that “it’s good” or “it’s evil” without actually thinking it through (I get that a lot from my students lately, and it’s becoming more and more tiresome).

Let the discussion begin…

Generally, I’d say only in the case in which things cannot be created – the “zero-sum game” scenario requires a fixed “pie”, so that the only way one person can increase his share is at the expense of another.

If people can create, then competition can spur the creation of a bigger pie.

With regard to your scenarios of intra-team or intra-company competition, I’d say that competition can promote excellence – but, depending on the situation and how the rewards are set up, it can also be counterproductive to the idea of synergistic collaboration.

For instance, if I am competing with my friend to see who gets a bigger bonus at the end of the year, and it’s based on hours worked and his bonus will not affect mine, perhaps that competition will push me to bill more hours than I otherwise would. I might ask for bigger projects that require more weekend work, or other such things than I would if I were just thinking in terms of my own utility preference of the extra dollar versus more free time.

However, if it’s set up so every dollar of bonus he gets is a dollar taken away from mine, then that virtually guarantees some level of sabotauging behavior will occur (not between us necessarily, but assuming this is a big firm and each person faces the same situation), which will negatively affect productivity and/or quality.

Play with the parameters more and you can do various things with the likely outcome, just based on a game-theory model.

To sum it all up, I need to give you the classic lawyer answer: it depends.[/quote]

good point BB. you should read “the origins of virtue”!

Do you do much along side mash constant?

[Need4Speed]

Is competition zero-sum? Do you mean competition in general, or something specific?

Because, it certainly doesn’t have to be.

I’ll give you an example. I drive autocross (racing where you drive a course laid out with orange cones, where everyone competes on time). The Pacific Northwest Region has some of the fastest drivers in the country (I’m not one of them, yet). I don’t mean that in a “hey they’re good” way, I mean literally #1, #2, #3, etc. in several different classes at national championships.

Yet, these people are some of the friendliest people at the local races. They’re great to hang out and chat with, they’ll give you tips, half the time they’ll even ride with you and point out things you could do better. Does that diminish their abilities? No. It might make you a stronger competitor, but the competition itself will push them to excel at the same time.

This has created a feedback loop, I believe. I think this is why there are so many top drivers in this part of the country. They help each other out, they compete against each other, then when they get to the national competition, it’s cake.

Of course, this is only one example, and there are certainly cases to be made where zero-sum is certain. But I don’t think it has to be for every case.

[Joe_Weider]

[quote]rainjack wrote:
Okie-dokie, then…I’ll give this a shot. But first, two questions.
1.) Will this be on the final?
2.) Are we being graded on grammar?

Where there is a game, there will be competition. There is no good or bad competition - only bad games.

Man’s inherent desire to win is never unhealthy, or catostrophic. I believe it is instinct. We have been playing games since we’ve been walking upright.

Now - the game can be corrupted, giving the appearance of unhealthy competition - i.e. the Lakers, or a sales contest that is zero sum like BB alluded to. But once again, competition is pure and, given a pure game, never zero sum.

[/quote]

I think man’s desire to win can indeed be unhealthy and almost catastrophic.
Look at the number of injuries inflicted or played with, the number of co-workers stabbed in the back, the wars, or what have you.
Or is this where you’re going with it being corrupted?
And if so, is it then the human nature that’s corrupt or is corrupting, or is it the competition that causes it?
I don’t believe competition is ever zero sum–but I’m curious where competition as a sort of holy grail stops and human nature takes over.

[rainjack]

[quote]Joe Weider wrote:
I think man’s desire to win can indeed be unhealthy and almost catastrophic.
Look at the number of injuries inflicted or played with, the number of co-workers stabbed in the back, the wars, or what have you.
Or is this where you’re going with it being corrupted?
And if so, is it then the human nature that’s corrupt or is corrupting, or is it the competition that causes it?
I don’t believe competition is ever zero sum–but I’m curious where competition as a sort of holy grail stops and human nature takes over.
[/quote]

Maybe all things in moderation? To be so consumed by anything that it takes over normal thought process is corrupting. I don’t think that competition in and of itself is the bad guy. I think that the corruption that is spoken of is more a factor of a flawed game than a flaw in the competition.

If I set up a sales contest between my salesmen to increase our widget sales, I am stting up a flawed game because I know that back stabbing and subversive maneuvers will be common place. I set up a flawed game to take advantage of competition. Now what was catastrophic? The competiton, or the flawed game setup?

[hspder]

[quote]rainjack wrote:
If I set up a sales contest between my salesmen to increase our widget sales, I am stting up a flawed game because I know that back stabbing and subversive maneuvers will be common place. I set up a flawed game to take advantage of competition. Now what was catastrophic? The competiton, or the flawed game setup?
[/quote]

Good point and great example!

Hence my mention in the initial post that I did not want to question competition, because competition is an unsurmountable fact of life; the trick is in how you manage it…