Meet Me in the Middle

We're Better Together

We had a morale event for our team that was navigating a high ropes course together. But before we went through our safety briefing and donned our protective gear, they had some games set up for us to play together. Our guide split us into two teams, six of us per team. She directed one to stand next to a 3' plastic ring on the ground with a dozen small balls inside of it. The other team was directed to stand at a second ring with balls about 30' feet away. She then explained the game, "The goal is to get all of the balls into your ring. Go."

Twelve people began running back and forth grabbing balls from the other ring and then running back to put them in their own ring. Some tried to carry a few balls at a time. Others tried to block their opponents from getting to their ring to retrieve more balls. But no real headway was being made. It didn't matter how fast either team was running, it was impossible to get all the balls into one ring. But driven by the game, we just kept trying, and laughing with each other as each team tried to win.

Then one of the players stopped and took a look at what was going on¹. He saw the chaos and the futility in what we were doing. Then he calmly walked over, picked up one of the rings, carried it over, and put it on top of the other ring. There was a collective "a-ha" as everyone dropped their balls into the double ring. "That's much easier." "Indeed, working together 'for the win'." But there was one voice that was holding on to the competition, "Who won?"

The game, the competition, is exhilarating. It's fun to match up against able contestants and push yourself, and each other, to achieve and to improve. But it's also important to assess the game and make sure there's a point to playing. There's a time and place for competition. And there's a time and place for cooperation.