No Contest: The Case Against Competition

I read Kohn's book 10 years ago and it changed the way I think about the world. Our society is becoming more uncivil and rude, sports and schools more violent. Kohn predicted it, and his work becomes more relevent every day. Studies of school shootings by Dr. James Gilligam, M.D., concluded that in every case the perpetrators had been subjected to years of ridicule and humiliation. Elliot Aronson of Stanford calls the atmosphere in public high schools "poisonous.' Aronson believes that the primary cause of hostile school environments is wide-spread obsession with competition. Everyone but the athletes and cheerleaders becomes "rejects." Aronson proved that bullying could be stopped (within two weeks!) after he convinced teachers to ditch their competitive framework and assign cooperative projects. The new structure broke down cliques between kids from different racial and ethnic groups, and from varying beliefs. They did something unheard of in modern life--they became friends! Kohn's book is a wake-up call for every educator, parent and business person who swallows the competition paradigm without question. Research has shown repeatedly that cooperation is better for performance, self-esteem and relationships. Despite the mythology around competition it DOESN"T build self-confidence. Competition is linked to shallowness and anxiety. (Skill attainment and good parenting build self-confidence). Ask yourself; "What PRICE have your kids paid in the competitive paradigm?" Are they healthier, more happy, more self-confident, kinder, more curious, well rounded, more interested in learning? What interests have they given up? What friendships ended? Are they thriving or anxious about the next event? There are other ways. Competition is JUST a belief system. Ask a modern biologist or anthropologist. They don't believe anymore that competition is the primary organizing principle. Life is fundamentally adaptive and cooperative. Since Darwin's theories were turned into "survival of the fittest"--a term coined by Spencer, an economist, and one that Darwin never used, we've been blindly following a paradigm without data. Competition is toxic and deep down we know it. The research has been done, the answers are in. If you're open-minded enough to question the beliefs you were taught in 5th grade, you'll read this book. Kohn's had the courage to stand up and say, "There's a better way. " He should be a national hero.

A friend recommended this to me because it changed her life. It is changing mine as well. Like the fish who has suddenly become aware of the water around him, I have become aware of the competitive environment in which we live - and how that environment is slowly poisoning us. Kohn defines competition as "mutually exclusive goal attainment" - a situation where someone wins only if others lose. This type of structure, by its very nature, erodes human relationships. Kohn is not asking us to do away with incentives or tests - he is asking us to stop using them to determine a "winner." Kohn shows that people in a cooperative setting will attain a goal with more efficiency and creativity than people in a competitive setting.But what about market competitiveness and the benefits for consumers? Yes, but think of the goal, the driving force behind this: making more money than the next company. That means polluting the environment (cleaner is usually more expensive), exploiting workers (the so-called minimum wage is not enough for anyone to live on), and even committing fraud. As Kohn explains, the nature of competition means that the goal becomes the most important thing. Everything else is merely an obstacle; everyone else an enemy.Sometimes I wish I hadn't read this book - it has thrown my view of the world upside down and made me question my work at a management consulting company. But I realize this is just the initial discomfort one feels after walking out of a dark room into the sunlight. The glare may hurt at first, but after your eyes have adjusted, you appreciate the new world you see around you. This book may hurt at first, but give it a chance and see if it doesn't change your world and your relationships for the better.

In this inspiring and well-researched book Alfie Kohn describes how we, in our compulsion to rank ourselves against one another, turn almost everything into a contest (at work, at school, at play, at home). Often, we assume that working toward a goal and setting standards for ourselves can only take place if we compete against others. By perceiving tasks or play as a contest we often define the situation to be one of MEGA: mutually exclusive goal attainment. This means: my success depends on your failure. Is this wise? No! Is this inevitable? No! This book brilliantly shows how: 1) competitiveness is NOT an inevitable feature of human nature (in fact, human nature is overwhelmingly characterised by its opposite - co-operation), 2) superior performance not only does not require competition; it usually seems to require its absence (because competition often distracts people from the task at hand, the collective does usually not benefit from our individual struggles against each other), 3) competition in sports might be less healthy than we usually think because it contributes to the competitive mindset (while research shows that non-competitive games can be at least as enjoyable and challenging as competitive ones), 4) competition does not build good character; it undermines self esteem (most competitors lose most of the time because by definition not everyone can win), 5) competition damages relationships, 6) a competitive mindset makes transforming of organizations and society harder (those things requiring a collective effort and a long-term commitment). I think many people reading this book will recognize in themselves their tendency to think competitively and will feel challenged and inspired to change. And that's a good thing. Our fates are linked. People need to, and can choose to, build a culture in which pro-social behaviors and a co-operative mindset are stimulated. The competitive mindset can be unlearned. By developing a habit to see and define tasks as co-operative we can defy the usual egoism/altruism dichotomy: by helping the other person you are helping yourself.

if there were one book that i could insist be read by everyone on earth, this would be that book, without question. it is more than a little surprising how, after reading a book, the point of which was to critically examine a mindset which is pervasive, certainly in western society, and i think throughout the world, anyone might raise the objections that have been raised in some of the more negative reviews. kohn is right on to observe that favorable views of competition are so entrenched within our collective worldview that most of us CAN NOT EVEN CONCEIVE of the validity of an argument which suggests that it is that mindset which is in fact responsible for much of what is wrong. kohn offers specific and convincing refutation to each and every objection raised within the context of the negative reviews of the book. his work NEEDS to be seriously engaged.

Alfie Kohn has written a masterwork of social psychology in his book, No Contest. Assailing on of our society's most sacred cows, he argues convincingly that common sense notions of competition -- that it is innate, is fun, builds character, and increases productivity -- are all myths. Drawing upon a voluminous amount of sociological and psychological research, Kohn slowly dissects the seedy world of competition and exposes its unsavory reality. Competition hurts productivity in all but the most mindless of tasks; it does build character, but invariably the wrong kind; it is not an innate human instinct but a product of controllable social forces. Last, the notion of competition being fun is the greatest insult and immorality to humanity. For the whole point of MEGA (mutually-exclusive goal attainment -- the fundamental component of competition) is to succeed based on the failure of someone else. Unfortunately, Kohn gives the reader little to go on in the way of! changing from a competitive to a cooperative society, except that people should shun competition and promote cooperative behaviors -- something easier said than done considering most competition is forced upon us. (Kohn offers more in the way of solutions in his other book, Punished by Rewards). Still, Kohn provides tremendous food for thought; and if his objective was to force the reader to, at the very least, reconsider the dubious value of competition in social interactions and institutions, he has done his job exceedingly well.