Re: Sharing the Learning LO3345

Thomas Bertels (tb@knipp.de)
Sat, 21 Oct 1995 18:03:27 +0100

Replying to LO3306 --

Barb Murphy wrote:

Some stuff deleted...

>Another lesson learned from observing my daughter try to play competitive
>games. She just can't lose--will cheat, change the rules, quit, anything
>to not lose. These games usually end in a fight. BUT, if I set the game
>up in cooperative way--where we help each other get points she will play
>very happily. My child development book says this is normal for her age.
>I wonder does she need to learn how to be competitive at the risk of
>losing this joy in cooperation?
>
>"BARB MURPHY" <B_MURPHY@ESB.swfpac.lmsc.lockheed.com>

I love your example...we need more thoughts like that, the business
examples become so odd and have no emotional relation to us...

I think your daughter has not to decide which way to take...we need the
ability to behave both ways. Organizations need people who fight for their
ideas against all odds, fanatics of change and innovation. We cannot
cooperate with everybody. We need to be able to play both roles, be
cooperative and be competitive, depending on what we can achieve. The
problem with our western culture is that we have learned by socialization
that fight for itself has a value...the only value we can create is that
we create something new, invent our future. We must be able to cooperate
with other people who got the same ideas in order to be successful...and
we must be able to use the power to defend our ideas. Cooperation is not
"better" than fight...the sound of the word fight makes us nowadays think
that it is necessarily something negative. We must unlearn this
black-and-white-view of the world.

Looking forward to your comments (and thanks again, Barb, for the great
example).

Tom

--
Thomas Bertels
Ulrich-Jakobi-Wall-Strasse 1 A
59494 Soest
Germany
Phone: +49 2921 15726
FAX: +49 2921 31627
Internet: tb@knipp.de