This was a very interesting conversation that arose and is one that I have heard a lot of debate about as well. I think for most adults and especially business owners we are all mature enough to understand that there are times where you lose and you learn from it. I’m pretty sure that as a child most of us went through some kind of situation where we were taught that no one ever loses, like say playing competitive sports, as a way to keep us happy and confident about ourselves.
So the main debate was, is constantly teaching people how one can never lose, starting at a young age, affect people’s ability to do well in a really tough working environment such as say running a business where you have to go against a lot of competition? I think it is important that you recognize when you lose with the important thing being how you deal with it as I think it is kind of counter productive to pretend that everyone always gets the same whether you win or lose so to speak. It’s kind of like thinking positive over a negative situation. There is a difference between recognizing a negative situation and trying to make it a positive one as oppose to simply pretending that negative things never happen.
For myself, I think using the there are no losers approach is okay at a very early age as it can be more challenging at that age to convince one on how to deal with that type of situation. I personally did a lot of things competitively at a very young age and so for me it was pretty smooth in learning that it’s okay to lose while using that experience to make me better. By the time someone reaches a teenage age though, I agree with people who express that it is kind of bad to still make people believe that there are no winners or losers in anything.
I remember one example during my high school years where I was in a production and this was indeed a competition against other schools as there were also awards that were to be handed out, like every other year, to recognize outstanding achievements. As it turns out, we made it to the finals. Everyone involved was extremely committed and passionate. I can honestly say if you broke it down by categories, there was a good chance that we were able to sweep the event as our production value was really that much higher overall which would have been an unprecedented type of happening.
When it came to the end to announce which production would get which award, the person judging instead then talks about how he decided that he enjoyed the productions and that he is not going to assign any awards that year as he had a pleasant time viewing the work from all the different schools. The person then commented as well on how awards kind of promoted a competitive environment which he doesn’t think should be necessary in life. He also expressed how doing so kind of categorizes certain people as winners or losers which he feels is wrong. We all felt kind of cheated over that and our instructor was equally upset and went on a rant on how it is ridiculous to teach people our age that there are never winners or losers in anything.
Surprisingly, I’ve seen a lot of people lean towards in agreeing with that notion as I would expect more apprehension. When you think about it initially, I can see how it does sound a little weird if someone tells you that you should teach people that there are losers when it comes to certain things. Can you imagine not teaching a person about mature oriented subjects until way later into someone’s adulthood as an example? I see that as something similar as it is better to teach it earlier so that one can learn to be responsible in the way that they handle things as it will be a challenge in one’s life.
Some people even tell me that they truly believe that a lot of people aren’t taught this soon enough which is why so many people struggle very early in their professional life. I personally think teaching a person that there are winners and losers is just a healthy aspect in life and is definitely important in business.