Dear Bob, You charactarize one's career competition with peers and corpoprate competition in the marketplace as a game, and rightfully so. But it is appropriate to differentiate it as a major-league game rather than a casual pick-up match at the park. The stakes are high (money, respect, security), the competition is often intense and focused (and does not always play by the rules), so to treat the challenges as Dear Bob,You charactarize one’s career competition with peers and corpoprate competition in the marketplace as a game, and rightfully so. But it is appropriate to differentiate it as a major-league game rather than a casual pick-up match at the park. The stakes are high (money, respect, security), the competition is often intense and focused (and does not always play by the rules), so to treat the challenges as a ‘relaxed’ or ‘casual’ game is a way to invite sure disaster.To compete, let alone win, at the Fortune 500 level, you need to realize that it is just a game but not play less hard for that realization. You need to focus on the aspects that lead to victory – communication, teamwork, 100% effort, positive attitudes, etc. – and pursue victory with single purpose or be prepared for someone else to take it from you. To be honest, I hope that all of my current and future competition take your article to heart. Relax, it’s just a game. What does it matter if you lose, really? You can play for another team next year, after all. Save yourself an ulcer and give up now…But if you are on my team, play hard or expect to get traded… as with all competition, it’s not whether you win or lose, it’s really just whether you win.– In the Big Leagues Dear Big …You need them to play hard for you; they need to play hard for you. Fair enough, up to two points:First, there is a line employees should not be willing to cross, and that’s where they jeopardize their physical or mental well-being. They’re playing at multiple levels – for you; also for themselves. I’ve seen a colleague drop dead on the floor from stress. The Japanese have a word for it: Karoshi – death from overwork. The game might be for high stakes, but it shouldn’t be for stakes that high. One way to keep it from getting to that point is to stay relaxed mentally. That doesn’t mean slacking off. It means keeping a sense of perspective about the limits to the consequences of losing. Paradoxically, that can help you win. There’s usually another battle tomorrow, and killing yourself today, or beating yourself up tomorrow about today’s lost battle, will hurt your ability to win the next one. Even more important, relationships outlast transactions, which means sometimes the cost of winning exceeds the cost of losing.Here’s the second point: My personal opinion is that it’s time for all of us to reject the Vince Lombardi Syndrome. Ever since Lombardi told us that winning isn’t just the most important thing, it’s the only thing, as a nation we’ve stopped celebrating how you play the game as something that matters.It’s not exactly a revelation to point out that some companies do consider winning to be the only thing. That doesn’t mean individual employees should embrace that notion, and in fact there’s a hard line every employee needs to draw. It’s a different line for each employee. Everyone needs to have one, or their self-respect and ethical sense will be gone. To put it differently, business in America today looks far too much like a WWF cage match for my tastes.I prefer golf.– Bob Someone else’s last word:Doug Gauthier supplied this wonderful bit: “They are playing a game. They are playing at not playing a game. If I show them I see they are, I shall break the rules and they will punish me. I must play their game, of not seeing I see the game.” – R. D. Laing ——– Technology Industry