Here's a thougth that's come to my mind, with the (soccer) world cup being on at the moment, how would professional footballers (and other athletes) operate on the creative rather than the competitive plain? Politicians too for that matter since, like competitive sport, party politics is also a race to the top/get elected, politics even more so where reputations are destroyed by those trying to climb over them. Or do these people just need to get out of sports or public life if they want to apply the SOGR principles.

Try a search here on some likely terms, JM. This topic has come up a LOT in the past.

Hi JediMaster,

True sportsmanship is about challenge rather than competition. "It's not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game."

I saw the end of one of the games, when the players of both sides were shaking their opponents' hands, slapping them on the back, smiling and laughing. I don't know which team won - it was impossible to tell because they were ALL obviously taking such delight in having had such a great game. THAT'S what true sport is about. It can actually be a form of 'more life to all'.

I won't comment on politicians, though ...

Polly.

For the sports thing I had just read an example of this today in a book on Dr. Deming. Since the book was quoting an advertisement talking about coach John Wooden in the Wall Street Journal I thought a copy of this particular story might be online, and sure enough it is. http://www2.cbi.msstate.edu/faculty/gtempleton/wooden.htm
I think it's a very good example.

I'm not going to get into how politicians could compete less on the competive plane and do more on the creative plane...but I sure wish they would!

Wow great article Dreams! Thanks for posting. I have been an athlete all my life, but truly never understood the difference between the competitive plain, and creative plain. Thinking back I now can see some opprotunites missed, but also some opportunities where I did perfom on the creative plain. I just did not realize it at the time.

Chris

I'm new to SOGR, in fact this is my first post

I've found that when participating in any competitive environment it's more about competing with yourself to improve than competing with your opponent to make them lose. When you lose, you vow to make yourself, or your team, better. You analyse how you can improve and make adjustments. You don't concentrate on beating the other person or team. So it's really a matter of attitude. Yes you are competing, but you are concerned mostly with what you can improve not what you can tear down.

In my opinion that's what's meant by avoiding competition, even in a competitive environment. There are two individuals, that I know of, who are good examples of this and they are Tom Osborne and John Wooden. Both successful coaches and competitors in their own right. I'm sure there are others, but theses two have demonstrated what I'm talking about.