📘 Part 3: Competitions

This episode's vocabulary

To foster (verb) - to encourage the development or growth of ideas or feelings.

Crusade (noun) - a long and determined attempt to achieve something that you believe in strongly.

To alienate (verb) - to cause someone or a group of people to stop supporting and agreeing with you.

To formulate (verb) - to develop all the details of a plan for doing something.

To undermine (verb) - to gradually weaken or destroy someone or something.

Pursuit (noun) - the act of following someone or something to try to catch him, her, or it.

Vicariously (adverb) - in a vicarious way (= experienced through the activities of other people, rather than by doing something yourself).

Pretext (noun) - a pretended reason for doing something that is used to hide the real reason.

Vast (adj.) - extremely big.

Swathe (noun) - a large part of something that includes several different things.

To pigeonhole (verb) - to have an often unfair idea of what type someone or something is.

Compulsion (noun) - a very strong feeling of wanting to do something repeatedly that is difficult to control.

Indirect (adj.) - happening in addition to an intended result, often in a way that is complicated or not obvious.

Comparatively (adverb) - as compared to something else.

To slaughter (verb) - to defeat someone very easily.

Trait (noun) - a particular characteristic that can produce a particular type of behaviour.

Collaborative (adj.) - involving two or more people working together for a special purpose.

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Questions and Answers

M: Let's talk about competitions. Do you think competition is important in the workplace?

R: Well, that depends entirely on the nature of the workplace. I mean, for example, if it's a firm with connections to the stock market, then obviously you want people competing to make the highest amounts for their clients and the company in turn. However, in a school where people are supposed to get along, it's a bit different. Similarly, there's a problem with the kind of behaviour it fosters. People can cheat to win competitions. I mean, do you want people doing that in an educational context or even a business one, come to think of it?

M: Is it necessary to encourage people to compete with others in companies?

R: Not if the culture of the company and its, well, and its objectives involve people working together. Obviously, everyone should work to the best of their ability, but you don't want people going off on some mad crusade for personal glory and alienating their colleagues as a result and then collapsing their support network just to win something designed to make money. You'd have to think about how the targets are formulated. It's rarely enough to just say whoever makes the most money wins.

M: And could the competition in companies be a bad thing?

R: Definitely. Like I say, if it's not, if the goals are not well formulated and the company culture isn't in place, then people might actually wind up totally undermining the, well, the purpose of the company in the first place in pursuit of their own goals.

M: Do you think that there is more competition now in companies than there was in the past?

R: Well, yes. I mean, there are more companies now and more people work for companies. So that means there will be more competition. I mean, if you mean is the competition more intense? I have no idea. I don't even know how you would begin to measure that. My guess would be, yes, because there are fewer jobs.

M: And what about the future? Will the competition be even more intense in the future, in companies and with people competing for different positions?

R: Well, if that trend continues, then yes.

M: Why are competition shows so popular?

R: I don't think it's the competitive element that actually attracts people, it's usually a chance for them to test out their own knowledge from a safe distance and live vicariously through others and their moments of triumph. And sometimes the competitive context is actually just a pretext for humorous answers, like in TV shows like QI or 8 out of 10 cats.

M: And what competition shows are popular in your country?

R: Well, ones like I mentioned, they're just like joke or comedic competition shows. But there are also quiz shows as well, like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire or The Chaser.

M: What kind of people usually watch competition shows?

R: Well, I mean, they're popular amongst a vast swathe of the population. So I don't know if we could just pigeonhole them. Maybe people that are interested in learning more about random subjects.

M: What kind of people would be competitive?

R: Well, people with some kind of compulsion to be seen as better than others, according to some socially determined criteria. I make it sound like that's something only bad people do, but it affects everyone to a certain extent, doesn't it? I mean, for example, I want to be seen as a successful English teacher in order to pay my bills and feed my desire to help people and feel good by doing so. That involves indirect competition with others, and they would be comparatively worse. It's not as bad as going out and slaughtering the competition, though. But the concept is similar, if not as morally questionable.

M: And why some people dislike being competitive?

R: Well, because they don't have these traits that I mentioned in my previous answer. They're probably more about collaborative working and working towards community goals, for example.

M: And do you think it's better for people to take part in competitions or stay away from them?

R: Well, you can probably have a healthy balance. I mean, you could do a few competitions, but I think if it develops to the point where you're obsessed with winning, everything, regardless of the cost, then you have a serious problem.

M: Thank you, Rory, for your answers!

R: No problem. I hope they make people more competitive!

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