Within a workplace, healthy competition serves as a crucial motivator, inspiring employees to attain optimal results for the company. Cultivating an appropriate level of competition among colleagues can enhance productivity and provide a sense of accomplishment in their daily tasks. However, an excessive amount of competition can yield adverse effects, leading to divisions between teams and fostering a hostile environment that hampers productivity.
The key is to establish a company culture that promotes healthy competition, ensuring that employees understand the boundaries and refrain from becoming excessively competitive. In this video, we explore various methods to encourage healthy competition within your company, aiming to drive the best possible results for your business metrics.
Why does competition matter?
Competition in the workplace is vital to keep employees motivated and stimulated. Research cited in Top Dog: The Science of Winning and Losing suggests that over 50% of people benefit from competition. A competitive edge in your workplace drives people to succeed, achieve their targets and goals, keep them on their toes, and reduce complacency. If there is no competition, people will get too comfortable and may not be motivated to continue delivering excellent results.
The team ALWAYS comes first
Healthy competition is undoubtedly a good thing, but it must translate into a successful and motivated team. Competition for competition’s sake breeds mistrust, envy, and disassociation and is not conducive to a productive workplace. If you look at any elite sports team, you can see how healthy competition helps deliver results. The best squads of players have multiple players in each position, who train hard each week to impress their coaches, hoping that they will get selected to represent the team in the fixture at the weekend. The same mentality should be adopted in your company. If your employees spend each week trying to prove to you and their teammates how valuable they are and how much they can contribute, this inspires others to do the same.
Hire with competition in mind
When you’re interviewing people for a role on your team, you should evaluate their personality traits and character, as well as their competencies and experience. Although you want to avoid people who come across as arrogant, you should ascertain whether the person you wish to employ is competitive and wants to thrive in their role. If you can find a goal-oriented person who is motivated to achieve the best possible results, then chances are they will thrive in a competitive environment in the workplace. Ask the right questions to understand a person’s motivation and try and understand what success looks like to them.
Set clear, achievable goals
Goal setting is a critical element of motivating your team and fostering healthy competition in the workplace. If you set realistic, achievable goals for each individual within the group, they will be encouraged to achieve them in the agreed timeframe. Also, if you set similar goals for all team members, then they will be motivated to do as well as, if not better than, their teammates. Moreover, in addition to individual goals, you should also set clear and achievable team goals. This way, you are creating an environment of accountability, and each member of the team has to pull his/her weight to ensure the whole team can meet their joint goals. People will automatically become competitive during this process, as they will not want to be the ones to let down the rest of the team.
Provide constructive feedback
Equally as important as goal setting, constructive feedback delivered consistently is imperative when fostering healthy competition in the workplace. To ensure that competition doesn’t get out of hand, the team leader must direct and channel employee enthusiasm in the right way. Also, feedback is a vital tool for self-improvement, and when things aren’t going quite to plan, constructive feedback can help employees understand where they’ve gone wrong and refocus their priorities. A great example of delivering constructive feedback is the sandwich method. You layer your negative feedback in between two pieces of positive feedback. Although controversial, it does actually work in many instances!
Create a game in the workplace that employees can win
There’s no better way of ensuring healthy competition in the workplace than creating an actual game that people can win, depending on their actions and contribution. People love playing games, and they are a fun way of keeping people motivated when they’re working toward their individual targets and goals. A great example of fun, incentive-based games that can be played in the workplace are initiatives like the employee of the month. As long as everyone is clear on the prize and they understand how they can win, you will see healthy competition fostered. Furthermore, don’t be scared to incorporate other games and fun activities into the workday. Encouraging play is a sure-fire way of normalizing healthy competition and is often much appreciated by your team.
Conclusion: healthy competition is great for business
Encouraging healthy competition in the workplace undoubtedly benefits business metrics. It is essential to establish clear expectations within the team, ensuring that everyone is actively pursuing both individual and team goals to maintain motivation and inspiration for delivering exceptional results for the business.
When hiring new staff, prioritize individuals with a competitive spirit who align with the workplace culture you aim to foster. The crucial aspect to bear in mind when promoting healthy competition at work is that the team should always take precedence. If individuals start compromising the team for personal advancement or gain, it becomes necessary to provide constructive feedback. This helps them redirect their energy appropriately, contributing to the larger organizational goals.
