Forced Competition

["Jean-Marie Gogue" <jmegogue@wanadoo.fr>]

Let me stress again on the destructions that forced competition is making in
the US and UK education system. The high officials who are increasing
competition between schools and between teachers sincerely believe that
competition is an ingredient of progress, but that is a preconceived idea.
"So simple, so wrong" Deming said. Youth education is so important for the
future of mankind that those people must understand that they are on the
wrong way.

Competition exists everywhere, in Wall Street as well as in the African
Savannah. People believe that it's useful because it's often inevitable. But
there are many cases where men and organizations got extraordinary results
without the competition strain: Einstein, The Bell Telephone Laboratories,
the Mount Edgecumb High School, etc. On the contrary, there are a lot of
examples where valuable men and organizations are destroyed by the
competition strain, but they quickly disappear from our memory (we remember
winners, not loosers). Thus it is vital to drive out the dogma that
"competition is useful" and to remove competition from organizations as
often as possible. The art of Leadership especially consists of motivating
people towards the organization's aim without using competition. The carrot
and stick system is the wrong way.

Jean-Marie Gogue

jmegogue@wanadoo.fr
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