A Bigger Prize

A Bigger Prize Plot Summary

Introduction

Competition has become so deeply embedded in our social fabric that we rarely question its value or purpose. From education to business, sports to politics, we're conditioned to believe that competition inevitably brings out the best in us and produces optimal outcomes. This pervasive belief shapes our institutions, policies, and personal ambitions, creating environments where success is defined primarily through outperforming others. Yet mounting evidence suggests this unquestioned faith in competition as the universal driver of excellence deserves closer examination. Through rigorous analysis of research across psychology, economics, organizational behavior, and evolutionary biology, we discover that competition frequently undermines the very outcomes it claims to promote. When we look beyond competition's surface appeal, we find that collaborative approaches often produce superior results for complex challenges. By exploring how social structures shape behavior, examining the hidden costs of hypercompetitiveness, and studying successful collaborative models, we can develop more nuanced understanding of when competition helps and when it harms. This exploration reveals not just theoretical possibilities but practical alternatives already functioning effectively across diverse contexts.

Chapter 1: The Myth of Competition as Universal Driver of Excellence

Competition has become so deeply embedded in our culture that we rarely question its value or purpose. From the classroom to the boardroom, we're taught that competition brings out the best in us - that it's the natural order of things, the way to identify winners and drive innovation. This pervasive belief has shaped our educational systems, corporate structures, and even our personal relationships. However, this unquestioned faith in competition as the universal driver of excellence deserves closer examination. When we look at the evidence, a more nuanced picture emerges. While competition can motivate certain behaviors in specific contexts, it frequently undermines the very outcomes it claims to promote. The assumption that pitting people against each other invariably leads to better performance, greater innovation, or optimal resource allocation simply doesn't hold up under scrutiny. The competitive model relies on a fundamental premise: that humans are primarily self-interested actors who respond best to individual incentives and the threat of losing. This view has its roots in a selective reading of evolutionary theory and economics. Social Darwinists have long cited "survival of the fittest" as justification for competitive structures, though this phrase was actually coined by Herbert Spencer, not Darwin himself. Similarly, many invoke Adam Smith's "invisible hand" while overlooking his extensive writings on human sympathy and cooperation. What's often missing from this narrative is recognition of our equally strong capacity for collaboration. Humans evolved not just as competitors but as highly social beings whose survival depended on cooperation. Our greatest achievements - from language development to space exploration - have resulted not from individuals working in isolation but from collective efforts that pooled knowledge, resources, and diverse perspectives. The competitive model fails to account for this fundamental aspect of human nature and success. The costs of our overreliance on competition are becoming increasingly apparent. When winning becomes the primary goal, we see decreased intrinsic motivation, reduced creativity, increased cheating, and damaged relationships. In educational settings, the focus shifts from learning to outperforming peers. In workplaces, knowledge-sharing diminishes as colleagues view each other as rivals rather than resources. These outcomes don't represent occasional failures of an otherwise sound system - they're the predictable results of structures that prioritize individual achievement over collective advancement. Perhaps most concerning is how competition narrows our focus and limits our thinking. When we're competing, we concentrate on immediate, measurable outcomes rather than long-term, complex goals. We become risk-averse, sticking to proven approaches rather than exploring innovative alternatives that might initially fail. This mindset is particularly ill-suited to addressing today's interconnected challenges, which require collaborative thinking across disciplines, organizations, and borders.

Chapter 2: The Hidden Costs of Hypercompetitiveness in Modern Society

Hypercompetitiveness - an excessive need to compete and win at all costs - exacts a tremendous toll on individuals and organizations alike. This mindset transforms every interaction into a contest where someone must emerge victorious and someone must lose. The psychological impact is profound: constant vigilance, chronic stress, and the inability to trust others create a state of perpetual anxiety. For individuals, hypercompetitiveness often begins early. Children who grow up in highly competitive environments learn to measure their worth through comparison with others. This creates what psychologists call a "fixed mindset" - the belief that abilities are innate rather than developed through effort. When these children inevitably encounter failure, they experience it not as a learning opportunity but as evidence of personal inadequacy. This pattern continues into adulthood, where hypercompetitive individuals struggle with perfectionism, fear of failure, and difficulty forming authentic connections. The workplace costs are equally significant. When employees view colleagues as rivals rather than collaborators, knowledge-sharing diminishes dramatically. Innovation suffers as people hoard ideas, afraid someone else will get credit. Decision-making becomes distorted as individuals prioritize personal advancement over organizational goals. Research consistently shows that hypercompetitive environments lead to increased stress, burnout, ethical lapses, and ultimately lower performance - precisely the opposite of what competition supposedly promotes. Perhaps most insidious is how hypercompetitiveness erodes trust and damages relationships. When every interaction becomes transactional - evaluated in terms of who "wins" - genuine connection becomes impossible. Studies show that hypercompetitive individuals experience greater loneliness and less satisfaction in their relationships. They struggle to receive feedback, view disagreement as personal attack, and miss opportunities for growth through collaboration. The physical health impacts cannot be overlooked either. The chronic stress associated with constant competition triggers inflammatory responses linked to cardiovascular disease, compromised immunity, and accelerated aging. The pressure to outperform others leads many to sacrifice sleep, exercise, and balanced nutrition - further compromising their wellbeing in service of "getting ahead." Organizations suffer similarly. When internal competition becomes the primary motivator, employees focus on outshining colleagues rather than serving customers or advancing the mission. Resources are wasted on duplicate efforts as teams compete rather than coordinate. The resulting workplace culture becomes toxic, leading to increased turnover, absenteeism, and disengagement - all of which directly impact the bottom line.

Chapter 3: How Social Structures Shape Competitive vs. Collaborative Behavior

The environments we create fundamentally shape whether people tend toward competition or cooperation. Social structures - from classroom arrangements to workplace incentives to economic policies - send powerful signals about expected behavior and what gets rewarded. These structures aren't neutral; they actively encourage certain mindsets while discouraging others. Educational systems provide a clear example of how structures influence behavior. Traditional classrooms that emphasize individual achievement through grades, rankings, and limited recognition create zero-sum dynamics where one student's success necessitates another's relative failure. Research shows that such environments decrease intrinsic motivation, reduce risk-taking, and diminish creativity - the very qualities education should foster. By contrast, classrooms structured around collaborative learning, where students work together toward shared goals and assessment focuses on growth rather than comparison, produce higher engagement, better retention of material, and more innovative thinking. Workplace structures similarly shape behavior through their reward systems and cultural norms. Organizations that primarily recognize individual achievements through competitive promotions, bonuses, and status symbols inadvertently encourage employees to prioritize personal advancement over collective success. Information becomes currency to be hoarded rather than shared. By contrast, organizations that implement collaborative structures - shared goals, team-based rewards, transparent information flow, and inclusive decision-making - find that employees naturally coordinate efforts, share knowledge, and support one another's development. The physical environment itself influences cooperation levels. Open workspaces designed to facilitate interaction, common areas that encourage informal exchange, and technology platforms that simplify knowledge-sharing all increase collaborative behavior. Even simple interventions like arranging seating to face others rather than away from them can significantly impact cooperation rates in experimental settings. Economic structures perhaps most powerfully determine competitive versus cooperative behavior. Markets designed around pure competition often produce unintended consequences: resource depletion, environmental degradation, and increasing inequality. By contrast, economic models that incorporate cooperative elements - from community-supported agriculture to open-source technology development to cooperative ownership structures - frequently generate more sustainable and equitably distributed value. Language and narrative frameworks also shape behavior by influencing how we conceptualize success. The metaphors we use matter: describing business as "warfare" or education as a "race" primes competitive thinking, while framing these activities as "ecosystem development" or "community building" activates cooperative mindsets. These narratives become self-fulfilling as people align their behavior with the dominant metaphor. What's particularly striking is how quickly behavior shifts when structures change. Experiments consistently show that most people readily adapt their behavior to match incentives and norms. The same individuals who compete fiercely in one context will cooperate generously in another when the structure rewards different behavior. This suggests that competition isn't an immutable human trait but rather a response to particular environmental cues.

Chapter 4: Collaborative Models That Consistently Outperform Competition

Across diverse fields, collaborative models consistently demonstrate superior outcomes compared to competitive approaches. These success stories aren't anomalies but represent a fundamental principle: complex challenges require the integration of multiple perspectives, skills, and resources that no individual or organization can possess alone. Open-source software development provides a compelling example. Projects like Linux and Wikipedia have produced sophisticated products through voluntary collaboration among thousands of contributors. Without traditional competitive incentives like exclusive ownership or monetary rewards, these communities have created resources of remarkable quality and complexity. Studies show that open-source software often contains fewer bugs, responds more quickly to security threats, and adapts more readily to user needs than proprietary alternatives. The collaborative approach leverages collective intelligence, allowing rapid identification of problems and integration of diverse solutions. Scientific research has similarly benefited from collaborative approaches. The most groundbreaking discoveries increasingly emerge from interdisciplinary teams rather than lone geniuses. The Human Genome Project, which mapped our complete genetic blueprint, succeeded through international collaboration among hundreds of scientists who shared data, methods, and findings. This approach completed the project ahead of schedule and under budget, while a competing private effort using proprietary methods lagged behind. Today, scientific journals with the highest impact factors show a clear trend toward multi-author papers, reflecting how complex problems require diverse expertise. In business, collaborative models often outperform their competitive counterparts. Employee-owned companies like John Lewis Partnership and New Belgium Brewing consistently show higher productivity, lower turnover, and greater resilience during economic downturns compared to conventionally structured competitors. Their success stems from aligning individual and organizational interests, fostering information sharing, and encouraging long-term thinking. Similarly, industry consortia that tackle pre-competitive research challenges - like the Semiconductor Research Corporation - accelerate innovation by pooling resources and knowledge that benefit all participants. Even in fields traditionally dominated by competitive paradigms, collaborative approaches show surprising advantages. The healthcare sector has seen remarkable improvements when providers shift from competing for patients to coordinating care across specialties and institutions. Organizations like Intermountain Healthcare and the Cleveland Clinic have demonstrated that collaborative care models reduce costs while improving patient outcomes. Their approach emphasizes shared goals, transparent information, and collective responsibility rather than individual performance metrics. Education provides another powerful example. Finland's world-renowned educational system explicitly rejects competition between students, schools, and districts. Instead of standardized testing and school rankings, it emphasizes collaboration among teachers, personalized learning, and equitable resource distribution. The results speak for themselves: Finnish students consistently outperform those from more competitive educational systems in both academic achievement and measures of wellbeing. What makes these collaborative models so effective? They leverage several key advantages: they access diverse perspectives that generate more creative solutions; they distribute cognitive load, allowing complex problems to be broken into manageable components; they create psychological safety that encourages risk-taking and innovation; and they align individual motivations with collective outcomes, reducing waste from working at cross-purposes.

Chapter 5: Reframing Success: From Zero-Sum to Positive-Sum Thinking

Our conventional understanding of success often operates within a zero-sum framework: for someone to win, someone else must lose. This mindset assumes a fixed pie of resources, opportunities, and recognition where gains for one party necessarily come at another's expense. While this model may apply to certain limited contexts like competitive sports, it fundamentally misrepresents most human interactions and possibilities. A positive-sum perspective recognizes that many - perhaps most - situations allow for mutual benefit and growth. When people collaborate effectively, they can create value that exceeds what any individual could produce alone. This isn't idealistic thinking but practical reality: the entire basis of economic specialization, technological innovation, and social organization rests on the principle that cooperation creates surplus value beyond what isolated competition could achieve. This shift in thinking has profound implications. In education, it means moving from curved grading systems where students compete for limited top marks to mastery-based approaches where everyone can achieve excellence. Research shows that when students collaborate rather than compete, overall learning improves for all participants. Strong students deepen their understanding by explaining concepts to peers, while those who struggle benefit from personalized support and multiple perspectives. In business, positive-sum thinking transforms how we approach markets and strategy. Rather than focusing exclusively on capturing market share from competitors, companies can expand markets through collaboration, creating new value propositions that benefit multiple stakeholders. Ecosystem strategies - where companies build platforms that enable others to succeed alongside them - have created some of the most valuable enterprises in history. Apple's App Store, Amazon's Marketplace, and Google's Android all demonstrate how enabling others' success can drive unprecedented growth. At the societal level, reframing success as positive-sum challenges the notion that economic inequality is inevitable or necessary for progress. Evidence increasingly shows that more equitable societies with strong social safety nets and collaborative institutions often outperform highly competitive ones on measures of innovation, productivity, and wellbeing. Countries like Denmark, Sweden, and Norway consistently rank among the most innovative economies while maintaining much lower inequality than more competitively structured societies. The positive-sum perspective also transforms how we approach environmental challenges. Rather than framing sustainability as a trade-off against economic growth, collaborative approaches identify solutions that simultaneously address environmental protection and economic development. Circular economy models, regenerative agriculture, and clean energy transitions demonstrate how environmental stewardship can create economic opportunity rather than constraining it. Perhaps most importantly, shifting from zero-sum to positive-sum thinking changes our relationship with others. When we stop viewing interactions as contests to be won, we can approach differences with curiosity rather than defensiveness. This opens possibilities for integrative solutions that address multiple interests simultaneously. It also allows us to celebrate others' achievements without feeling diminished by them - recognizing that excellence is not a scarce resource but an expandable capacity.

Chapter 6: Balancing Healthy Competition with Effective Collaboration

While the evidence clearly demonstrates the limitations and costs of excessive competition, this doesn't mean we should eliminate competitive elements entirely. The challenge lies in identifying when competition serves useful purposes and when collaboration proves more effective - then designing systems that incorporate the best of both approaches. Healthy competition can provide motivation, establish clear benchmarks, and drive improvement when properly structured. The key distinction lies in competition's focus and implementation. Competition against established standards or one's previous performance often proves beneficial, while direct competition against others frequently undermines intrinsic motivation and collaborative potential. Similarly, competition that emphasizes process improvement rather than winner-take-all outcomes can drive innovation without the destructive effects of hypercompetitiveness. The most effective organizations recognize that competition and collaboration aren't mutually exclusive but can be complementary when thoughtfully integrated. Companies like Toyota famously use internal competitions to generate diverse solutions to problems, followed by collaborative processes to refine and implement the best ideas. This approach harnesses competitive energy while ensuring that the ultimate goal remains collective improvement rather than individual victory. Timing also matters significantly. Early-stage innovation typically benefits from collaborative approaches that encourage exploration, risk-taking, and knowledge-sharing. Premature competition often narrows thinking and discourages the experimentation necessary for breakthrough ideas. Later stages of development and implementation may benefit from more competitive elements that drive efficiency and refinement. Understanding this sequence allows organizations to match the appropriate approach to each phase of work. Scale represents another important consideration. Competition often works well at small scales where participants can directly observe outcomes and adjust their behavior accordingly. As scale increases, however, the complexity of coordination grows exponentially, making collaborative approaches increasingly valuable. This explains why even the most market-oriented economies rely on collaborative institutions to address large-scale challenges like infrastructure development, public health, and environmental protection. Individual differences also influence the effectiveness of competitive versus collaborative approaches. Research shows significant variation in how people respond to competitive incentives based on personality, cultural background, and previous experiences. Effective organizations recognize this diversity and create systems flexible enough to accommodate different motivational profiles rather than imposing one-size-fits-all competitive structures. Perhaps most importantly, balancing competition and collaboration requires conscious attention to power dynamics. Competition between parties with vastly different resources or influence typically reinforces existing advantages rather than identifying superior ideas or approaches. Collaborative structures can help level these imbalances by ensuring all participants have meaningful voice and agency in the process. The most successful organizations maintain this balance through deliberate cultural and structural choices. They clearly communicate when competition serves the collective purpose and when collaboration takes priority. They reward both individual excellence and collaborative contribution. They create forums for healthy competition alongside robust mechanisms for knowledge-sharing and mutual support. And they regularly reassess whether their balance of competitive and collaborative elements continues to serve their ultimate goals.

Chapter 7: Creating Systems That Reward and Sustain Collective Achievement

Transforming our competitive default into more collaborative approaches requires more than individual mindset shifts - it demands systematic redesign of the structures that shape behavior. These systems must explicitly recognize, measure, and reward collective achievement rather than focusing exclusively on individual performance. Organizational reward structures powerfully influence behavior. Traditional compensation systems that primarily reward individual achievement inadvertently discourage collaboration by creating internal competition for limited resources. By contrast, organizations that implement team-based compensation, profit-sharing, and recognition for collaborative contributions find that employees naturally align their efforts toward collective goals. Companies like Semco, Morning Star, and W.L. Gore have pioneered such approaches, demonstrating that when rewards reflect collective achievement, collaboration flourishes. Decision-making processes similarly shape collaborative potential. Hierarchical structures that concentrate decision authority in few hands limit the integration of diverse perspectives and create bottlenecks that slow response to complex challenges. Organizations that distribute decision rights based on expertise rather than position - what some call "decision markets" - tap into collective intelligence more effectively. These approaches recognize that no single individual possesses all relevant information or insight, particularly in rapidly changing environments. Information systems play an equally crucial role. When information is treated as a source of power to be hoarded, collaboration becomes impossible. Organizations that create transparent information environments - where data, insights, and even failures are openly shared - enable coordinated action and collective learning. Digital platforms that make knowledge accessible across traditional boundaries have transformed industries from software development to scientific research by enabling unprecedented collaboration. Physical environments also influence collaborative behavior. Spaces designed to facilitate interaction - from informal gathering areas to flexible work arrangements to digital collaboration tools - increase the frequency and quality of exchanges that drive collective achievement. Even simple interventions like creating shared break areas or implementing collaborative technologies can significantly impact how people work together. Measurement systems perhaps most powerfully shape behavior by defining what "counts" as success. Traditional metrics focused on individual outputs or comparative rankings inherently limit collaboration. By contrast, systems that measure collective outcomes, process improvements, and collaborative behaviors send clear signals about organizational priorities. Leading organizations increasingly incorporate collaboration-specific metrics into performance reviews, promotion decisions, and strategic planning. Ownership structures represent perhaps the most fundamental system influencing collaboration. When ownership is concentrated, decision-making naturally prioritizes the interests of a narrow group. Broadening ownership - through employee stock ownership plans, cooperative structures, or community ownership models - aligns individual interests with collective outcomes. Research consistently shows that organizations with distributed ownership demonstrate higher levels of collaboration, innovation, and resilience. Temporal structures also matter significantly. Short-term performance pressures - quarterly earnings targets, annual review cycles, rapid promotion tracks - discourage the investment in relationships and processes that enable effective collaboration. Organizations that extend their time horizons through longer-term incentives, patient capital structures, and developmental career paths create space for collaborative approaches to flourish. What these various systems share is recognition that collaboration doesn't happen automatically, even when individuals value it. Effective collaboration requires intentional design of structures that make working together both possible and advantageous. When systems align to reward collective achievement, they tap into our natural cooperative tendencies while channeling competitive energy toward shared goals rather than individual advancement at others' expense.

Summary

The evidence presented throughout this exploration reveals a fundamental truth: while competition can drive certain behaviors in specific contexts, it frequently undermines the very outcomes it claims to promote. Our unquestioned faith in competition as the universal driver of excellence has shaped institutions and policies that often produce counterproductive results - decreased intrinsic motivation, reduced creativity, damaged relationships, and narrowed thinking. By examining the hidden costs of hypercompetitiveness and understanding how social structures shape behavior, we can move beyond simplistic competitive frameworks toward more nuanced approaches that harness our equally strong capacity for collaboration. The path forward lies not in rejecting all competitive elements but in developing more sophisticated understanding of when competition helps and when it harms. By studying successful collaborative models across diverse fields - from open-source software to scientific research to employee-owned businesses - we discover practical alternatives that consistently outperform purely competitive approaches for complex challenges. The shift from zero-sum to positive-sum thinking opens possibilities for creating systems that reward collective achievement rather than individual dominance. These collaborative frameworks don't represent naive idealism but practical reality - they align with our evolutionary heritage as highly social beings whose greatest achievements have always emerged from collective efforts that pool knowledge, resources, and diverse perspectives toward shared goals.

About Author

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Margaret Heffernan

MARGARET HEFFERNAN is an entrepreneur, Chief Executive and author. She was born in Texas, raised in Holland and educated at Cambridge University. She worked in BBC Radio for five years where she wrote, directed, produced and commissioned dozens of documentaries and dramas.As a television producer, she made documentary films for Timewatch, Arena, and Newsnight. She was one of the producers of Out of the Doll's House, the prize-winning documentary series about the history of women in the twentieth century.She designed and executive produced a thirteen part series on The French Revolution for the BBC and A&E. The series featured, among others, Alan Rickman, Alfred Molina, Janet Suzman, Simon Callow and Jim Broadbent and introduced both historian Simon Schama and playwright Peter Barnes to British television. She also produced music videos with Virgin Records and the London Chamber Orchestra to raise attention and funds for Unicef's Lebanese fund.Leaving the BBC, she ran the trade association IPPA, which represented the interests of independent film and television producers and was once described by the Financial Times as "the most formidable lobbying organization in England."In 1994, she returned to the United States where she worked on public affair campaigns in Massachusetts and with software companies trying to break into multimedia. She developed interactive multimedia products with Peter Lynch, Tom Peters, Standard & Poors and The Learning Company.She then joined CMGI where she ran, bought and sold leading Internet businesses, serving as Chief Executive Officer for InfoMation Corporation, ZineZone Corporation and iCAST Corporation.She was named one of the Internet's Top 100 by Silicon Alley Reporter in 1999, one of the Top 25 by Streaming Media magazine and one of the Top 100 Media Executives by The Hollywood Reporter. Her "Tear Down the Wall" campaign against AOL won the 2001 Silver SABRE award for public relations.Her third book, Wilful Blindness (Simon&Schuster in the UK, Bloomsbury in the US, Doubleday in Canada) was a finalist for the Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Best Business Book award and, in 2014, the Financial Times named it one of its "best business books of the decade.” Her next book A Bigger Prize (Simon&Schuster in the UK, Public Affairs in the US and Doubleday in Canada) won the Transmission Prize. Her most recent book Beyond Measure : The Big Impact of Small Changes was published in 2015. Her TED talks have been seen by over 5 million people. She has been invited to speak at all of the world’s leading financial services businesses, the leading FTSE and S&P corporations as well as the world’s most successful sports teams. She continues to advise private and public businesses, to mentor senior and chief executives and to write for the Financial Times and Huffington Post.

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