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In this episode Joel and Antonia talk about how different people show up to the world using either a competitive frame or a collaborative frame. They also dive into a little bit of MBTI type theory around the polarities.
In this podcast you’ll find:
- The difference between a competitive frame and a collaborative frame.
- Frame = perspective/reality that you use when coming to an interaction.
- If you originate from a competitive frame, you may have a tendency to base your social interactions upon competition.
- If you come from a collaborative frame, you may have a tendency to base your social interactions upon collaboration.
- Competitive frames can frustrate communication.
- One of the basic principles of improv is that whatever the person on stage with you says, you respond, “Yes, and… “
- Competition and collaboration can both be useful in the proper context.
- We have been taught to play a zero sum game (Win/Lose) when there isn’t necessarily a need for winners and users.
- Sometimes we create zero-sum games with our communication styles. We endlessly apologize for ourselves or blame others for perceived slights.
- Our judging functions are the ones we use to make decisions – Thinking/Feeling
- Car Model
- Extraverted Thinking (Te)/Introverted Feeling (Fi) are more concerned with competition as a general rule.
- Introverted Thinking (Ti)/Extraverted Feeling (Fe) are more interested in collaboration as a general rule.
- Fi is about creating distinctions and differentiating yourself from others.
- Te is about getting things done and resource management. If you come from a place of scarcity, you will automatically be competitive if you feel your survival is at stake.
- Fe is about consensus. Even those who are overly concerned with social status are showing an unhealthy use of Fe.
- Ti wants consensus with info. They don’t hoard their info. They usually get accused of over-sharing.
- Are you blocking energy by holding back because of competition? Are you stingy with your energy?
- Fe may appear non-collaborative due to their need to conserve energy.
- Getting competitive is how we get things accomplished.
- Some people are the most collaborative once they have taken care of the competitive part and are in the position they want to be.
- We can choose to be competitive in a collaborative way.
- Often, we create a team, consensus, or meme and we become competitive about supporting it.
- Both collaboration and competition are necessary. If you can’t do both, you have limited your options.
- Watch for what you are capable of doing and what you gravitate toward. Then try to be the other.
- We can be competitive for humanity.
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7 comments
This episode was really interesting. It reminded me of Deborah Tannen‘s book You just don‘t understand. The theory she describes in the book is that men are socialised to view themselves and others as part of a hierarchy, while women are socialised to view themselves and others as part of a team, and this informs how they communicate and behave. So one could say that her theory is that men are socialised to use a competitive framework and women are socialised to use a collaborative framework.
I really love the idea that Joel brought up towards the end – that if we tend to use a competitive framework (wherever that came from, socialisation, one‘s judging function polarity, or something else) we can become collaborative once we have a sense of having the competitive piece handled, and vice versa. This seems like powerful advice.
I‘m a female INFJ and I definitely use a collaborative framework; but I would like to have access to the competitive framework when it suits the context, so I will think about what getting the collaborative piece handled might look like for me. Thank you!
This was amazing. I totally “get” the concept of being competitive “as a team,” taking the team forward, competitively, together.
I am an ENFP
When you are not talking about competition in sport or a competition where a winner is chosen (eg. a singing competition), there is no such thing as good competition, it is toxic poison to unity, collaboration, and the best outcome for all. It comes from the false belief that you are a separate individual, when you are the same transcendent unity identity as everyone else, when you look beyond the physical illusion. People coming from the competition orientation believe they are the separate individual, the false self, the conditioning of the tribe and society, and don’t know who they really are.
Conflict and competition are two different things. Conflict comes from people seeing things differently, emotionally identifying with a rigid, fixed point of view, and attempting to force that point of view on the other.
If you believe the best man/woman for the job is the one who gets the job the majority or even the minority of the time, you are living in self-delusion fantasyland. All sorts of corruption can enter into the equation: nepotism, the interviewee manipulating the interviewer without the interviewer’s awareness that this has taken place, the interviewer picking one candidate over another for petty, spurious reasons, filling affirmative action / diversity quotas, the interviewer picking the extroverted self-promoting liar over the introverted humble truth-teller, the interviewer not liking the brutal honesty of the interviewee, etcetera.
“Healthy competition brings out our best”? How can you lie to yourself like that? Look around at the world you live in, and tell me that is true. You would not be able to honestly say that. The competition of the corrupt money system brings out people’s WORST qualities: Greed, selfishness, materialism, vanity, domination, bribery, fraud, corruption, theft.
When you mention the desire to be the best, it reminds me of a livestream I watched where the speaker said that we overcompensate for the rest of our lives for the original childhood wounding we all receive when our self-expression is rejected or harshly criticized or ridiculed, until we remove or heal it.
Personal development ends when you realize you are not really the person.
Why do we need competition? I listened to the podcast and they never explained why.
We certainly DON’T need economic competition or any kind of money system. This false belief in competition is one reason why corporations are destroying the Earth, and why man continues to be a slave to money / employment while being ruled by psychopaths whose goals are world government and depopulation.
Hi,
Competition is not a bad word. Only if people link their selfworth to winning it, it might get ugly. But just think of your own journey to growth. It is a lot about trying something new, finding out what fits or works best and letting different points of views or strategies “win” over others. There are moments were growth is not at all about accepting.
Sometimes I feel like Fe is more about saying “yes” and Fi is more about saying “no”. Maybe I even heard that here :) So this podcast made a lot of sense to me.
I think Fe users have a harder time figuring out, what they want, because they might be very used to a “yes” that is generated for them through their surroundings. Very collaborative.
With Fi you might find it tough as well to figure out what you want. But more because you see a lot how you feel different about something than others and learn only about your “Nos” while waiting around for a yes.
Being an enfp I experience that my Ne and my Te are the ones that make me say yes and go collaborate. And my shy and slow Fi just hopes to be listened to every now and then. My Fi gets really strong, if things have gone too far or something needs to be rejected. Saying “No” loud and clear seems to be it’s only talent so far :/
Also I have this wish to kind of “win life” or doing the “best” I can. Like competing against an alternative future :) I like that way of thinking, it keeps me going. It adds a little pressure to go further.
Laura
I’m very much a collaborative type as an INFJ; however, what you’re describing is unhealthy competition. Just like in a sport, we can all go out there and try our hardest, but with good sportsmanship, and someone has to lose, but then everyone can remain friends afterward. Or, one can take the competition too hard and hurl insults, cheat, use PEDs, or whatever. This same example can be carried to other examples. Like consider a job opening where two people want the position. If they compete in bad faith, it can get really ugly really fast. However, if they compete fairly and in good faith, it increases the chances that the best person for the job gets it. This isn’t just good for the hiring company and the person who gets the job, but it’s still good for the person who lost, if they use it as a moment of instruction to improve.
And though I generally loathe conflict, I also realize that not only is it inevitable, but it’s necessary and it can be good. Healthy competition gets people to test the outer limits of their abilities and stretch their comfort zones and becomes an opportunity for growth. Further, one of the weaknesses of collaboration is that it can result in honing in on sub-optimal results when group-think takes over or when the collaboration itself is sub-optimal. By this I mean, just like how people can cheat or get bitter and destructive in bad competition, people can coast as dead weight or even poison collaboration. We’ve all had team projects, in school or at work, where someone just coasts on the work of the rest of the group and doesn’t contribute their best work. We’ve also probably all had teams where someone was even actively sabotaging some or all parts of the project for whatever reason.
And this is why, as the podcast outlines, why we need both collaboration and competition. Healthy competition brings out our best and healthy collaboration brings people together to achieve a higher goal no one person can achieve alone. Used effectively together, we get many people all using their strengths together. This is also why, again despite my own general bias toward collaboration, I have several people in my closest circle who are competitive because they help keep that desire to be and put forth the best and it ultimately makes me more effective in my collaborations. And for these friends, I can help bring the perspectives to balance out their perhaps over-aggressive competitive streaks to see how we can work together more effectively. It works out well for each of us.