How Do Competitions Help Improve Skills?

Competitions are a way of setting the boundaries of competence, motivating people to meet objectives and meet deadlines, identifying and testing potential, establishing working models and defining goals. It is often the object of impassionate debate and controversy, but competitions arise naturally in all organisations, be it a business or a political party. To understand competition, we must look beyond the day-to-day battle for supremacy in specific areas to examine how competitors operate, what motivates them, what makes them successful, and how they differentiate themselves from each other.

Competitions are a tool for testing quality and effectiveness. Because quality and effectiveness depend on the team members involved, it is important that organisations encourage and nurture open and free communication. It is important that people know how to communicate with each other, both within the workplace and outside it, so that teams have the space to engage in honest and meaningful discussions. Because most competitions require a short turnaround time, it is also important that organisations help their individual employees to understand the importance of competing.

When organisations compete successfully, they give rise to internal competition, and the performance of the staff becomes linked to the overall results of the competition. This process helps people to improve individually and build up personal confidence so that they are able to do their best. This is why organisations encourage and support healthy competition among their staff, so that individual efforts produce results that benefit the business. In order to succeed at competitions, organisations must find a good balance between competition and preparation.