Competition and Collaboration

We often think of competition and collaboration as opposites or activities opposing each other. This is a notion reinforced by the Collaboration Spectrum which places them at different points along a spectrum. Bar-Yam points out that while different, collaboration and competition are interdependent.

We typically think of evolution as a competition, e.g. survival of the fittest. But there are many examples of altruistic collaboration between cells of multicellular organisms, insects and humans through evolution. Collaboration makes possible structures of a higher order. It permeates our daily life.

Bar-Yam uses a sports analogy, to illustrate the relationships between levels. Teams need to collaborate to form a league and enable a sport to exist, and to effectively compete with other sports for fan attention. Players on a team need to collaborate for that team to effectively compete against other teams. When players on a team compete with their own team mates they are less likely to win.

Collaboration supports competitiveness at the next level up. Competition set at one level leads to collaboration at the level below.

Highly complex tasks cannot be performed by a single individual (they exceed an individual’s complexity). Instead, processes that provide for feedback and learning for a group performing a complex task, enables progressive improvement.

Bar-Yam suggests that improvements to health care quality and cost would be enabled by empowering workgroup competition as an incentive. Just as team competition drives improvement in sports, competition between teams of care providers could enable improvement of healthcare outcomes.