A Bigger Prize

How We Can Do Better Than the Competition

By: Margaret Heffernan

Narrated by: Margaret Heffernan

Get into the best schools. Land your next big promotion. Dress for success. Run faster. Play tougher. Work harder. Keep score. And whatever you do make sure you win.

Competition runs through every aspect of our lives today. From the cubicle to the race track, in business and love, religion and science, what matters now is to be the biggest, fastest, meanest, toughest, richest. The upshot of all these contests? As Margaret Heffernan shows in this eye-opening audiobook, competition regularly backfires, producing an explosion of cheating, corruption, inequality, and risk. The demolition derby of modern life has damaged our ability to work together. But it doesn't have to be this way. CEOs, scientists, engineers, investors, and inventors around the world are pioneering better ways to create great products, build enduring businesses, and grow relationships. Their secret? Generosity. Trust. Time. Theater.

From the cranberry bogs of Massachusetts to the classrooms of Singapore and Finland, from tiny start-ups to global engineering firms and beloved American organizations like Ocean Spray, Eileen Fisher, Gore, and Boston Scientific, Heffernan discovers ways of living and working that foster creativity, spark innovation, reinforce our social fabric, and feel so much better than winning.

©2014 Margaret Heffernan (P)2015 Audible Inc.

Margaret Heffernan is brilliant!

This is one of my favorite books of all time! I was captured for all 15 hrs 48 mins. Looking forward to more from Margaret.

Fascinating and inspiring!

As an undergrad enrolled in Game Theory class, there was a lot of talk about competition vs. cooperation. Although cooperation would nearly always yield a better outcome in those theoretical scenarios, it seemed to defy the way human nature worked in reality. A Bigger Prize turns that assumption on its head. Not only does Heffernan provide evidence that competition is not as productive as it is often touted to be, she also provides inspiring examples that show what has already been accomplished by good collaborators. She argues powerfully for dispensing of the idea that we are stuck in a zero-sum game (in order for me to win, you have to lose). Instead, she proposes and supports with evidence that greater outcomes (or bigger prizes) can be enjoyed by both of us when we work together.

Heffernan covers a wide variety of industries: education, music, entertainment, academia, medicine, scientific research, plant and animal farming, pharmaceuticals, and even religion. The recurring pattern that emerges from these examples is that competitive models promote conformity, cheating, fraud, selfishness, and risk intolerance. Conversely, cooperative models promote creativity, innovation, a higher degree of investment and accountability, intrinsic motivation to produce quality work/products, and freedom. Cooperative models aren’t without challenges, however. They require good communication, units that are small enough to safely fail, willingness to share resources, and most importantly of all, TRUST. A cooperative environment, therefore, has the best chance to solve our modern world’s most complex problems.