Many people love the idea of competition. It powers professional sports, and works as a great motivator. I even know of some team building companies who ironically only work with the competition model.

As a team building facilitator myself, most of the workshops I lead are competition free. In my workshops people work towards a goal, try to beat their personal best, or work against a time limit, I don’t like to have teams work against each other, because in competition, where there are winners there are also losers. While everybody likes to win, nobody likes to lose.

In a recent family workshop, one of the girls in the family asked incredulously during the first activity, “But who am I playing against?” She wanted to know why she should even bother participating in an activity when her success wouldn’t be measured by being better than someone else.

With a bright smile, and an encouraging tone, I told her, “It’s a TEAM building workshop. You’ll be working together here.” She accepted the challenge and got involved.

I always like to refine my approach and make it better, and that includes trying new things. So I decided to try a bit of competition that day. There’s a game I play called “losing your marbles” that involves transferring a ball from point A to point B. Instead of giving each team a personal challenge to meet, I made a classic competition. And guess who’s group lost? That girl. And guess how she felt about losing? Simply put, not good. She almost quit for the rest of the day because she lost.

I’m sticking with the non- competition model for now.

Do people need competition? Do you have any ideas on how to teach healthy competitive skills?