A client recently raised the question of how a company’s culture can shift from being highly competitive internally to being more collaborative without taking away the competitive “edge” which has helped with their success in the marketplace.
An interesting question and one for which I didn’t have an answer at the time. It intrigued me enough to spend time reflecting on it and, I think, coming up with a reasonable response.
Collaboration according to Webster means to share, work with one another, cooperate and assist. While to compete means to outdo one another for acknowledgement, a prize, supremacy, or engage in a contest to compete in business.
In my opinion you can do both successfully because the end goal is the same - to innovate and strive to be the best through competition and to collaborate by working in a competitive way in order to innovate and be the best.