Leverage Weekly #63 - Managing competition
tl;dr - Competitive energy can be fruitfully channeled
I have frequently used the metaphor of machines to describe organizations. Another metaphor that is useful at times is that of software. One can think of clubs, teams, organizations, and even societies as pieces of software, each with its own special internal logic or “code.” This perspective fits in with thinking about organizations as pieces of social technology which can be configured in more and less useful ways.
Just as pieces of software can run inside or on top of one another, different social forms are embedded in one another. When one social form is embedded in another, it inherits many features from that other, more fundamental social form. A sports club, for instance, may be part of league, which occurs within a given society in a particular country. Like embedded pieces of software, the club then inherits properties from the league, which inherits properties from the society and country.
These abstract observations are especially helpful when thinking about the concrete problem of competition. Organizations, such as non-profits, are frequently not meant to be competitive entities. Even within competitive organizations and groups, such as for-profit businesses or sports teams, competition is supposed to be directed externally, not internally. Yet many organizations and teams struggle with issues of competition, either failing to compete in healthy ways or competing in unhealthy and ultimately destructive ways.
To manage competition in an organizational context, it is important to understand its origin. There is an important way in which competition arises from nature, but by the time an organization deals with competition, this natural tendency has already been civilized, socialized, and refined to the point that what one is dealing with is really a social instinct. The question, then, is not how to tame the raw product of evolution, but how to channel the energy of competition, which comes in from society, in a way that helps organizations and individuals achieve their goals.
How does one manage people’s competitive instincts? There are two bad answers to this question, and one good one. The first bad answer is to try to simply eliminate competition. Things might be better if one could do this, but in the context of an organization, which exists within a society, one cannot. Attempts to eliminate competition entirely will result in either the organization becoming demotivated, the competitive instinct arising via alternate, surreptitious channels, or both. Academic science is a well-known case where competition has been unsuccessfully suppressed.
The second bad answer is to create competition where there is or should be none. I have heard an executive talk about “controlling” employees by “pitting them against one another.” This is all quite unnecessary. There is plenty of fuel for competition already and adding to it mixes in power in a needlessly confusing manner. The real task, and the correct way to manage people’s competitive instincts, is to identify the competitive energy coming in from the outside and channel that further into healthy expressions.
It is here that the idea of organizations as software may be helpful. Organizations exist in societies. Societies have laws. On the analogy of software, one can think of organizations as code that is itself running on the code of society. Society, through its code, is managing competition already. Organizations, through their code, should continue this effort. Done properly, competitive energy can motivate people and keep an organization on task. Mismanaged, the result can erode or destroy an organization from within.
In practice, the proper management of competition involves first, identifying circumstances in which competition is likely to arise, given the society in which the organization exists, and second, creating policies that channel the competitive energy into competitions that are pro-social and further the organization’s mission. This latter step inevitably involves ensuring that where competition occurs, participants can be reasonably assured that the competition will be fairly adjudicated. This is not an easy task, but it can be done.
Competitive energy can be fruitfully channeled.
One of the tasks that Leverage performs when working in a scientific field is research validation. This involves checking the quality of the research and ensuring that the research is, in fact, reliable. This is a crucial process to perform because research occurs at many different quality levels and it is possible for researchers to pursue dead ends for long periods of time because they don’t realize that one or another hypothesis is better or less well supported than they think.
The topic of research validation has shown up as part of Leverage’s mission to support the Quantum Biology Institute as it seeks to show that quantum effects are ubiquitous in nature and tied to function. Some of the biological literature that the Leverage team has encountered seems to contain errors, and this has raised the question about the reliability of the research in the area in general. The institute is now considering whether to open its own lines of investigation into quantum biology, being sure, of course, to avoid overlap with QBI.
Last week, Geoff, Melinda, and Oliver met with Florian Metzler and Jonah Messinger from MIT. The two teams talked about nucleonics and low-energy nuclear reactions as a potential focus area for Leverage, as well as Leverage’s process for taking on new Bottlenecks projects. The teams agreed that Leverage would begin its initial exploration phase to learn more about nucleonics and related topics. This may then be followed by a second phase, which is fundraising.
Otherwise, Melinda continued editing a new introspection video, Oliver developed a new aesthetic direction for Leverage publications, and the team worked out a perspective about how to have good interactions with non-profit funders. With respect to QBI, Leverage gave its first presentation, entitled “Saving time with good org design.” It appears to have been received well!