Leadership Espresso with Stefan Götz

From Rivals to Partners: Redefining Success Through Mutuality

• Stefan Götz

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What if everything we've been taught about competition in business is fundamentally flawed? In this thought-provoking conversation with Jeff Allen, we challenge the core belief that competition brings out our best and explore why it actually creates dysfunction instead of excellence.

Competition divides the world into winners and losers, destroying the very relationships that make success possible. "You don't achieve success through competition, you achieve success through mutuality," Jeff explains, revealing how this mindset shift can transform team dynamics. We examine how fear-based leadership diminishes performance across entire organizations and why supporting team members who struggle creates more powerful outcomes than replacing them.

The conversation takes a surprising turn when we discover the parallel between friendship and leadership. Both require genuine giving, connection, and the willingness to support others in their growth. We also uncover the hidden patterns that cause leaders to feel victimized by their own success – how unconscious agendas cause us to "hide our taking under a mountain of apparent giving." By diving below the waterline of conscious behavior, we illuminate why raising our awareness about these patterns creates breakthrough leadership possibilities.

Ready to transform your approach to leadership? Listen now and discover why connection rather than competition might be your greatest untapped resource for creating extraordinary results. Share your thoughts about how these ideas could apply in your organization – we'd love to continue this important conversation with you.

Listen to the Leadership Espresso Podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/show/4OT3BYzDHMafETOMgFEor3

View the Leadership Espresso Podcast:
https://www.youtube.com/@Stefangoetz_Global_Leadership/videos

Connect with Stefan Götz on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefangoetz/

Check out Stefan's Executive and Team Coaching
https://www.stefan-goetz.com/

Speaker 2:

So welcome back to the Leadership Espresso podcast today, again with Jeff Allen from the UK. I'm so grateful, jeff, that we're doing this small series about true leadership, creating the new normal in business. Great to have you on the show.

Speaker 1:

Great to be here, stefan, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, let's jump right into it. Today, it's all about competition.

Speaker 1:

Ah, my favorite subject.

Speaker 2:

yes, yeah, nice subject right, and we all love competition. You know we're brought up with competition In Germany. You know we always want to be the first, the best, we build the best car. We love competition. So what's so bad about competing? It brings out the best version of us, right?

Speaker 1:

yeah, but it's really tough to talk about competition, especially to business people, because so many business people go. It's essential, it's important. You have to compete in all this. The big problem with competition is competition creates winners and losers and you might be winning, but someone's got to be losing, and the whole idea about you hear that phrase so often win, win, but and and it's true, it's a great thing to aspire to. I mean usually when people say, oh, it's a win-win, you, you know you're about to get shafted, but anyway, it's a great thing to aspire to win-win.

Speaker 1:

But how can you be competitive and win-win? It's not going to happen. I mean, you win for most of the time and some of the time, but in the end you split the world or your company or your family into winners and losers. And this goes not only in business, it goes all the way into relationships. Usually when a relationship is having the biggest fight, it's because someone's trying to make the other person the loser, and the loser just will do anything to get revenge on the winner. So what competition does is destroys relationships and you cannot have success without relationships.

Speaker 2:

So that's the bottom line when it comes to competition. Now, when I put myself into someone working at the big companies, I feel like being in this Dread middle. You know where people tell me Next year, your budget needs to raise by 10%, or, in this, our case now is probably by minus 10% In cost. But it's always like you gotta be better, you gotta raise the bar, you gotta win, you gotta so what. I don't get it. If I'm that position, this is what I'm expected to do. So is there more than just one solution? Or yeah, it's?

Speaker 1:

it's. It's not a bad thing to keep, you know, improving yourself, finding better ways. You, you know going for greater and greater goals, to extend yourself further and further. But the truth is, you will achieve that much more easily through mutuality than you will through competition. When you get a team really working, I mean it it becomes unstoppable, it achieves amazing things.

Speaker 1:

But you can't have that team and competition. You just need to take your pick about which one you're going to do. And, equally, you don't want to push people. You know the extent to which you get your team and you push them sooner or they will start pushing you back, and then you have the seesaw. What you need to do is motivate people. You need to get people to buy into your vision. You need to inspire people to join you, to have the same goals as you, and you do that through connection, mutuality, through cooperation and also being the best that you can be. I mean, that's that's so. It's not about reducing your goals and saying, oh well, we're not going to compete, so we're going to lie down here and and not strive, oh no, strive, oh no, strive. Really go for it, go to improve, but recognize the traps of competition.

Speaker 2:

So I keep remembering that we always said competition is based on a belief of scarcity, right, yeah, yeah, so that would mean that the way I perceive the world is, there is not enough for everyone, yeah, so if I combine that with what you're saying about connection, about thriving, about opening up, this would mean and then I combine it to what we said the other day about accountability, and I combine it to what we said the other day about accountability I enlarge my realm, my field of vision of who I integrate, right, yeah, yeah, so it's like it's not. You know, competition is kind of like you're scaling down on the possibilities, right?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely, and you are relying on yourself. And the other thing is like half your energy in competition goes, or more goes, to kind of destroying the other competitor. So you're kind of wasting energy. I mean, what you do is when you want to go for success. It's like all your energy goes for success. You know success is? You don't achieve success through competition, you achieve success through mutuality.

Speaker 2:

So if I and I think many leaders are in that position, I guess I'm also in some parts of my life or some stages. I'm also in some parts of my life or some stages. I'm trying to compete. If I'm in that position, if I'm that trap, let's call it trap. What are the steps getting out of?

Speaker 1:

there. Oh yeah, it's like you say. I mean, competition is so ingrained in us and typically the most competitive people are the people that don't appear competitive. You win a lot Things like that. So a lot of our competition is very subliminal, very subconscious. So what we need to do is start really consciously looking to support the people around us. And it's always that question if something's not going well in your team or your company, it's like what could I give here to change this? So it's from my giving, from my extending myself, the difference.

Speaker 2:

Now let's connect it back to our first episode, where we talked about, you know, leadership is hearing the calls for help. Now, what we are claiming now here is that we say if somebody fails in your team, it doesn't deliver the right quality, or not on time, or not on budget. Our typical favor is blaming, say, okay, you're not good enough, so out of here, or you get a second chance If you miss it out of here. So what? You're not good enough, so out of here, or you get a second chance if you miss it out of here. So what you're claiming is not blaming, but reintegrating, being accountable and finding out the reasons, how we can together solve it or absolutely.

Speaker 1:

and in terms of competition, one of the acid tests of competition is if someone around you is failing, it's because you've stopped giving to them and you've started competing with them. So if you want them not to fail, then quit your competition and start giving to them, start helping them, start extending yourself to them, and then they will flourish, they will achieve what they've set out to achieve.

Speaker 2:

So what is it that I ask to give If somebody fails on budget, on time and quality? What is it?

Speaker 1:

Oh, it could be many things, but essentially it all gets down to your support, that you really put your mind yourself behind them, into, you know, believing in them, into giving to them, in trusting them. You know all those things it's like for you to get on their team, get on their side, you know, get behind them so in, in, wow, you're asking.

Speaker 2:

You know you're asking quite a lot, because it's kind of paradoxic. You know, in the traditional way we'll say you failed, you didn't deliver, so you get punished. But we all know that this will just replace one person and then another one will fail. So are you going to dismiss everyone from your team or what?

Speaker 1:

No, and that's what happens. And when you do that, when someone fails and you fire them, what happens is you increase the fear in the team. The fear becomes stronger and then the people perform less, because now they're all fearful, Because they go. Who's next?

Speaker 2:

Who's next. So actually if you watch someone fail on the team, you know that some sort of competition is working, is running. I put myself on his side and support him and kind of make it visible that we're all in one boat.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. And you keep asking what could I give here that would change this whole thing? What could I do that would support this person? So, basically, what support does is heals competition.

Speaker 2:

Right does is heals competition. Right now, if I'm still kind of, if I find it hard to connect to that person, you know, because I think, well, this is a loser and I'm a winner and I don't want to connect with losers, I want to be the star, yeah, so what would help me find a different approach? What would help me realize that together, there's more on offer for all of us? Yeah, yeah Well you're going to hate the answer to this one.

Speaker 1:

I mean, it's basically, if you have an issue with losers, it simply means that once upon a time you were a loser and you've never dealt with it. So you don't want to be a loser because you're saying I'm never going to go back there, which means you always have to win, which means you're locked in a win lose thing. But it is only a matter of time before you pick a fight that you will not win and you will go back to being a loser. So it's like the way through all this stuff is basically you know getting back to the accountability dealing with your own issues and you know getting to a place of of really being able to connect with everybody. It's that you know to start becoming that friend, you know, that person that just makes all the difference.

Speaker 2:

Now friendship. I value friendship a lot and I think some would ask the question business and friendship, how would this tie together?

Speaker 1:

Easily. The dynamics for leadership and the dynamics for friendship are the same, you know it's the same.

Speaker 2:

Let's explore this a little more. So what is it about friendship and leadership.

Speaker 1:

Friendship is your willingness to give, and same with leadership. You enter a position where you share yourself, you give of yourself to the people around you. That's what leadership is. Leadership is not the old-fashioned leadership. You know it's tough at the top and you know all that kind of stuff. No, this leadership is the willingness that you step into the center and from the center you radiate out, you connect with everyone, you give to everyone, which is basically what you do with friendship. You know you overlook your friends mistakes. You, you learn all that kind of stuff. Same with you know.

Speaker 2:

I mean, you almost drew it wrong, but I still love you.

Speaker 1:

You're my friend well, yeah, you still, you know. But sometimes it takes a real friend to be honest to you. You know, that's the whole thing. You know, if you really see your mate screwing up, I mean you're in a position to call them on it, you know, because you know it's going to hurt them sooner or later or they're going to get in trouble. So you, you as a friend, need to step up, same as leadership.

Speaker 2:

Step up right I remember you know quite a number of cases where you know where there was a misunderstanding about giving and potentially, you know, being the victim a big project right now. This is a person, is a real, a great leader and there's one dynamic working where he believes. If I, if I continue to grow up, you know the next level, you know I'm sucked up by everyone because I'm giving. So so what do we need to learn about giving?

Speaker 1:

that's not giving. This is what we all do. Underneath all that apparent giving, we have an agenda about something we're gonna get, and that's what we do. We all hide our taking under a mountain of apparent giving. This is really common. People can reach high levels of success, but if there's been any sacrifice which is that feeling, I've got to carry everybody. If there's been any sacrifice, which is that feeling, oh, I've got to carry everybody. If there's any sacrifice, at some point you will sabotage your success Because in your mind, subconsciously, you do not see more success. You see more carrying, more sacrifice. But you need to clean up your own act.

Speaker 2:

You need to recognize you can only be a victim if you're trying to take something so I need to create, uh, more awareness about my patterns, about, you know, the things that are not, uh, really on the surface level, yeah, but that will. That will explain why I may have conflict or why I feel like, you know, I'm sucked up or I don't want to have more success and I'm great you know. So I think we have another topic here.

Speaker 1:

We have conflict, conflict resolution for the next episode that's true and all the things you say, and essentially, what's really important for business, people and the world over, especially at times like now, is people do need to raise their consciousness. The problem is, people's consciousness is not where it should be.

Speaker 2:

Right, so that's why we are here. You know, like you know, we have this iceberg Exactly. We have the diggers below the waterline. We like to scuba dive. We are here, you know, like you know, we have this iceberg Exactly, we have the diggers below the waterline.

Speaker 1:

We like to scuba dive. Yeah, fantastic, friendly and pointing out people's blocks.

Speaker 2:

Good work, jeff. Again another episode that was really very precise, very concise, and it was fun. Thank you for that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, thank you, stefan. Yeah, take care, stay well To another episode. Thank you, ciao.