Does Competition fuel Conflict and Collaboration build Harmony?

This blog brings us back to earth for some practical applications of mindful balance, I have gone deeper into in my previous blogs.  This is based on the handout provided at a session called Power of Balance: Compete or Collaborate facilitated for the American Society of Quality in Ottawa on 22nd January 2014 - to an audience of engineers and technicians.  

There was a time when organizations expected people to leave their emotions at the door.  In the last ten years, it has been accepted that emotions – our feelings and needs - are part of being human and we cannot separate them from who we are, wherever we are.

Emotional intelligence is a core requirement for organizational performance complementing our rational logical analytical intelligence contributing to commitment, innovation and productivity.  

Emotional intelligence is our ability to:

·         Accurately identify emotions in ourselves and others
·         Understand and manage emotions
·         Use and effectively communicate emotional feelings and needs

As long as we have to collaborate and work as a part of a team in our organizations, we have to first understand our emotions - what pushes our buttons - and learn to manage them in order to resonate with others.   This leads to relationship intelligence. 

This self knowledge is about doing the inner work required to understand what our feelings and needs, strengths and weaknesses, and to realize the three Ps that drive us humans at the most basic level  – Power, Pleasure and Procreation.  This is where the competition begins.  While learning to compete and win is important for survival as an individual, we also realize that winning at any cost creates conflict. 

Then we have to find that balance, hence realizing the Power in that balance through collaboration is the secret.  

Collaboration requires empathy, compassion and understanding.  It requires us to compromise and balance the ‘survival to the fittest’ mentality of the scientific and industrial age where competition is encouraged at any cost.     

Our mind and body balances on basic fundamental laws of biology.  We are wired for survival through the reptilian brain designed to first recognize a threat in any situation.  

When we realize that our biology is designed to protect us first, we learn to emotionally differentiate between a real and a perceived threat and make a decision for appropriate action.  The limbic brain opens for compassion and empathy when we feel safe and our needs are met.

Reptilian brain helps us to survive and it also drives us to compete.  The Limbic brain opens us to collaborate.

Personal Responsibility and the Foundation of our Breath

When we learn our neurobiology, we can differentiate between real and imagined threats and take control of our thought process driving our emotions based on the reptilian or limbic brain. 

Our breath then becomes our foundational ally to find the power of balance.  Taking a deep breath to stop our thought process is to find that space to realize when reptilian negative emotions rise to fuel potential conflict.   Stepping back enables insight and self-knowledge. Having a clear mind helps to seek objective evidence whether to validate or willfully change those emotions from negative to positive.     

This journey is very personal and unique to each individual by taking responsibility for our own emotions, judgments, prejudices and biases.   When we realize how this internal voice, driven by our ego, can dominate us to compete and destruct, we act to change our mind to create a balance for the common good.

Acknowledging and taking the emotions out of logical rational conversations is our goal.  In approaching difficult relationships and conversations with good intentions, with a strategy and a plan, we will find that we have less difficult people to deal with.  When we dig deeper, we will find that others have the same fears and hopes as we do.      

Finding this space will open us to empathize and collaborate – being generous and developing a giving nature, will find others recognizing and reciprocating.   With experience, skill and wisdom we become strategic to develop a collaborative culture whether at home or the workplace, to find the Power of Balance in Harmony.    

Lalith Gunaratne

Ottawa, Canada