Are you afraid of competition? No. Don’t be! Many people fear competition, irrespective of where it is coming from. And that attitude is destructive and counter-productive. Let’s look at some scenarios You work in an organization, and until a new, equally competent staff was hired you were the star or so it seems in the office. And suddenly, you are hit hard in the face. You become worried, scared and even petrified. You begin to experience sleepless nights over the issue. You fear the competition that the fresh hand brings. You fear he or she would take the shine off you. So what do you do? In another case, you own and run a restaurant. You have a good number of customers and you are happy. Business is doing well. But before you say Jack! Someone opens a ‘chop bar’ near your business. And then you start having nightmares about the competition that it brings to you. It also happens in school. There is a guy in your class, any time he gets up to ask a question, he asks relevant and insightful questions. When he makes contributions to discussions he makes a lot of sense. And so you feel he is a threat to your ego. You become worried that he seems to become the teacher’s or lecturer’s favourite because he makes useful contributions to discussions. How about a newsroom scenario? In my career as a journalist/writer, spanning eighteen years, I have worked with a number of news organizations and I can tell that the competition in the newsroom can be fierce and deadly. In some cases, it has been fatal! You are never allowed to outshine your editors and seniors, no matter how bright you shine! On some radio stations, your voice will never be heard on air! The fear of competition from your seniors will make them sideline and cup you from functioning. There would be instances where very good stories you might have written would never get published or aired. At other times someone else would take the byline for your hard work! Senior journalists compete with their juniors where there are opportunities for training. They would never allow the younger ones to attend what they consider ‘juicy’ programmes. For the fear of competition, some Ghanaian websites have policies that say, they should never mention myjoyonline on their sites and they should also not use stories from the site. But then, when they are hard pressed, they pick stories from myjoyonline, and when they do, they shamelessly take credit for it! They claim to have written those stories themselves, when they did not. Some sites have taken stories from myjoyonline and deliberately credited other sources for the stories. How about some newsrooms? For any careful observer, the people who work on myjoyonline do as much as they can to be professional. They credit every single source they do their stories from. But what do they get in return, probably for fear of competition, when others, including, newspapers, radio and TV newsrooms pick stories, and in many cases the exact words of stories on myjoyonline and use it for their stories, they never mention myjoyonline as the source. So, for fear of competition these otherwise good people are infringing the copyright laws of Ghana. What they are doing is plagiarism, and should someone sue them, they would be in for real trouble. What competition should do to us Competition in itself is a good thing. It is not bad at all. It is how we see it. What is bad about how we view competition is the specific attitude with which we respond to it. Indeed, competition should compel us to excel. No matter what our views about our competitors are, those views do not take away from their competences and they would continue to give us a run for our money, whether we like it or not. It is therefore, unnecessary and unproductive to indulge in sinister moves and acts to deal with competition. In any circumstance that we face competition, we should be aware that we are not living on an island. We live in a pluralistic, free world. And in this world, no one person has monopoly over anything. You might have skills in a field, but someone else might be better than you in performing functions in that field. Instead of fighting your competitor like an enemy, you are better off, seeing the competition as a motivation to give out your best yet. If a new product gives you competition, one good way to stand your grounds is to redesign and repackage your products to meet the demands of a customer base that has become increasingly sophisticated. You can also stand competition by improving on your personal relations with people as well as your customer relations management. Some people have dealt with competition that had potential to kill their businesses by buying off the businesses of their competitors, while others have gone into a merger and together have become successful. A friend told me something a very long time ago, even though, from his own attitude he doesn’t believe in it, the wise saying has become part of me. He said, “if you meet a strong man, you don’t antagonize him. You win him over to your side and make him part of your team. That way, you become stronger.” You don’t treat competition with anger and fear, if you do, you would be the loser. Some people react to some perceived competition by denying their perceived competitors what help they can offer them when the need arises. For instance, you might have a friend who is pursuing an idea for a project. He calls you to assist him because you have some skills he could use. But because you fear that when you assist your friend, he or she is likely to be successful, you drag your feet or you refuse outright to help, even though, you lose nothing by helping your friend. You should bear in mind that, this world is not only complex, but mysterious. Even science does not comprehend everything and does not have all the answers. For all you know, your own success might be tied to your friend’s success. There is an Akan proverb which says “if you don’t allow your friend to get nine, you won’t also get ten.” This proverb is so true to life. Indeed, most people are stuck where they are now in life because they have refused to help their friends to move on in life, and for as long as your friends are stuck in the mud, you are stuck in too, and may be in your case you are stuck in even deeper than your friends are. Let competition bring out the best in you. Fighting competition with evil is incompatible with progress, personal achievement and truth - values I believe you stand for. You don’t paint your competitor black because you want to appear white. If you are white, it will show - you don’t need to contrast your appearance by diminishing and destroying your perceived enemy who is only engaged in genuine normal activity just as you are. Mind you, if you destroy your competitor, you may only have temporary respite. There will always be another competitor lurking out there. And again, if you succeed in destroying your competitor, your competitor will go down with whatever skills and knowledge he or she possesses. Those qualities will not add up to yours, and so you wouldn’t become any better. Always remember that, no matter what you do, and wherever you find yourself, there will always be competition, and you will not win in any competition by cheating and by destroying your competitor. Fight in such a way that you win your competition in a clean way. Besides, I think you are a true winner, who is of greater benefit to humanity if by your creativity you stand the competition, as well as inspire your competitor to healthy competition in which you are both the winners. Remember Marion Jones? She cheated to become world champion in athletics. But some years later, she was found to have used banned substances to enhance her ability to run her races. She has been stripped of her titles and she is languishing in jail! Let competition bring out the best and not the worst in you. Author: Emmanuel K. Dogbevi Email: edogbevi@hotmail.com