In a room of other high achievers, what is your first instinct? Do you start comparing — check out their bios (or wonder about their bios) to see how you measure up? You want to make sure that you are in line with them or [hopefully] ahead of them on the professional ladder.

Why?? Is success really a zero-sum game. Even if you are in the same industry, does someone else have to be less successful in order for us to succeed? Life doesn’t grade on a curve. Yet, we feel the need to position ourselves on some sort of hierarchy above those around us because we think this is necessary for success.

News flash: This doesn’t get us there. In fact, it is only hurting us.

Earlier this month the TED Radio Hour tackled this issue in “The Meaning of Work.” Specifically, Margaret Heffernan talked about the pecking order and how the high performing (and highly competitive) chickens were outperformed by the “average” chickens because they pecked each other to death. Instead, the “average” chickens laid more eggs and had a higher survival rate because they worked together. WOW! You can see the video of her talk here – http://www.npr.org/2015/10/02/443412777/is-the-professional-pecking-order-doing-more-harm-than-good

Let’s be clear: I’m not encouraging us to be average. I’m encouraging us to abandon the endless need to compete with one another. Instead, we need to foster an environment of collaboration.

This competition happens all over the place. We feel it in the workplace and with management. There are tons of articles about how women managers are harder on other women. Most of us have stories of the terrible boss — and it is usually a woman. This competitiveness and cutting down even extends to the mommy-blogs. Most recently, Kim Kardashian felt the criticism of other women saying that she didn’t know how to buckle her kid in a car seat (oh, the comments were much worse). See Scary Mommy’s take on it here.

Again… Why are we doing this to ourselves? Let’s change the game. Stop the criticism. Work together. (Oh, and have lunch together.)