A Bigger Prize: Why Competition isn ' t Everything and How We do Better

This recent book from Margaret Heffernan provides good reading (and re-reading, I suspect) for project managers at all levels.

Heffernan comes with impressive credentials as an entrepreneur, CEO, TV and radio producer, public speaker and author of several books. Here she delivers remarkable insights, roaming far and wide across an often whacky world to develop her central thesis: that our insatiable preoccupation with intensely competitive approaches to achieving aims and objectives has not only dominated our thinking in contemporary society, but has also failed to deliver what we really want. In fact, competition often delivers outcomes we do not want, and our obsession with it has obscured our ability to see the bigger prize.

Her solution is that we do better by engaging in co-operative, creative collaboration. Not that that is easy: “It’s hard because so little in our culture trains, rewards or even seems to notice great collaboration. Collaboration matters because we know we do better work, find more ideas, and craft more solutions when we work collectively” (p. 229).

Project managers already committed to alliancing as a method of project delivery will still find much to learn here as well as enjoy. For the “alliancing sceptics” out there, at least consider the strength of her arguments. Heffernan develops these over eleven chapters in three sections (plus an introduction). At 438 pages, with notes, bibliography and index, it is a hefty read but well worth the effort.

In the Introduction, the author recalls a visit to the demolition derby at a state fair in the USA, using this subtle metaphor to demonstrate the damaging terminal effects of over-competition. Stories of sibling rivalry and internecine family strife follow in Chapter 1, showing how an over-emphasis on individualism can cause life-long pain. Project managers will find some profound insights into organisational structure and performance here. Chapter 2 continues the theme, looking at education, its preoccupation with tests and scholastic achievements and the dismal failure of both as reliable predictors of success. The point is made that if someone comes first then somebody else has to come last, and the personal tragedies of over-competitive lives are legion. Radical innovations developed in Finnish schools demonstrate a startling alternative approach. Included here too are some of the psychology surrounding competition and its associated brain chemical activities. This can inform strategies for people management – a fundamental driver in effective project management.

Chapter 3 (inevitably) looks at the gender divide and how females still enter the competition race in many fields from positions of disadvantage; while Chapter 4 examines, among other entities, business ventures and science laboratories to explore corporate pecking orders and the potentially catastrophic effect of high power/distance ratios. This is all about leadership and decision-making authority. In her quest Heffernan looks at cranberry-growing, tomato processing, advertising, banking and finance, elite sport, education and a plethora of other examples as sources for assembling and presenting her arguments.

Preoccupation with success is considered in Chapter 5. Olympic medal counting, and extreme fanaticism about shaving milliseconds off personal best times, suggest that we have arrived at dangerous levels in our attitudes towards such competitive performance arenas, whether from the perspective of participant or spectator. Chapter 6 addresses the associated contemporary cult of individualism and “stardom”. We find that not only is a true measure of the latter very rarely achieved, but also that the drive for success can create irresistible pressures leading to cheating, corruption and fraud. We also discover the need for a balance of personality types in collaborative team approaches; too much emphasis on cleverness will lead to dis-harmony and aggression. Leadership styles are particularly important in co-operatively structured endeavours.

Innovation and invention come under the spotlight in Chapter 7. While these are obviously the lifeblood of successful development in society, Heffernan warns about the “copycat” effect that they inevitably bring about, and the stultifying results of product “cloning”. A radically new TV show may be a resounding success initially, attracting huge viewer audiences (and a concomitant increase in advertising revenue), but is soon copied by other channels, and the format becomes a prescriptive template for all future programmes of that type - witness the number of game shows, kitchen contests and costume dramas that fill our TV schedules. This is all about minimising commercial risk, but that comes at the cost of true innovation.

Chapter 8 returns to pre-occupations again, this time with size, and the competitive pressure for organisations to become the biggest, even if that means going outside their traditional fields of expertise to hoover up other enterprises into their dust-bag portfolios. Size is everything and biggest is king. But eventually, and often too late, the realisation dawns that greater size brings with it more risks and bigger risks, more problems and bigger problems (including having to integrate new and often incompatible and indigestible acquisitions into the organisation). Greater size is invariably accompanied by drives for greater efficiency. Staff numbers are ruthlessly cut, eventually shifting costs onto social welfare and the public purse, while retained employees are put under greater stress and actually become less productive. We know the cycle, but continue to ignore it. Of course small enterprises can fail, and fail more easily, but they can also recover more easily; while the largest conglomerates try to convince themselves, and governments too, that they are too big to be allowed to fail – the 2008 Global Financial Crisis is still a difficult learning experience for public and private power brokers.

In Chapter 9, Heffernan develops the concept that over-competitiveness, excessive growth and cost cutting end up as a race to the bottom, the main victims being society and the environment, and in Chapter 10 many of the measures of size and growth are shown to be unreliable, inaccurate and even invalid. This takes us to the short concluding Chapter 11, which rounds off her arguments for adopting a better way in order to win a bigger and more sustainable prize. Note that, as she herself states, Heffernan is not adopting a mantra that “small is beautiful”; working collaboratively and collectively together does not shun size and growth but recognises that these bring issues that also need to managed co-operatively.

Heffernan’s writing style is engaging, easily facilitating the reading journey from eye to mind. Readers will encounter many “Ah-hah” moments and this is powerfully persuasive stuff.

What is in this book for project managers? Ms Heffernan’s writing is remarkably free from project management jargon; indeed from jargon generally. It is also devoid of any mention of Public Private Partnerships (PPP). Whether this is accidental, and PPPs have just fallen beneath her topic radar, or whether the omission is deliberate and she has perceived them for the misnomer they represent – for they are certainly not partnerships – is not clear, but it is refreshing to find that they are not trotted out as exemplars in a book pleading for greater collaboration. For the project manager prepared to devote time and reflection thought, this book contains profound insights about people management, organisational structures, decision-making, risk, performance, success criteria, leadership, quality assurance, safety and environmental management, and conflict resolution. Do you need to ask for more?

You can find out more about Margaret Heffernan at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qzsm2NtF0MA