Being nice pays… scientifically speaking

We all know that Charles Darwin said that survival was a prize won by the fittest, suggesting that we compete for scarce resources.  However this is only part of the truth, because if we look at nature, there is far more evidence that co-operation is the best route to survival.  You can look at colonies of insects such as bees, or birds and apes where non-parents will help rear the young of other females.  I watched some amazing footage of a bird of paradise who uses a young ‘apprentice’ male to woo his potential mate.  The pay-off being that the younger male learns the steps of the dance from his ‘mentor’, thus ensuring he will be more successful when it is his turn to mate.

Back in the days of the cold war, when there was serious worry about nuclear war, and what strategy would lead to safety and security and and which would lead to ending civilisation.  They developed a game called the Prisoners Dilemma which enabled them to test this theory.  They proved, that in the long term, safety was better assured by co-operation than selfishness. 

So perhaps instead of working to gain an advantage over your ‘rival’, you might be better off to come up with a strategy which is win:win…? 

This entry was posted on Monday, June 8th, 2015 at 07:00 and is filed under Business Change, Hints, Tips & Techniques, Personal Change. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.