Tuesday, July 31, 2012

When Sport Isn't a Metaphor for Life

We expect our kids to learn life lessons from playing sports, things like teamwork, competition, discipline and practice. But the competitive structure of sports is not representative of how most people live their lives. Sport relies on tournaments to crown a champion. Most people live their lives - and particularly their careers - in a perpetual regular season.

Either we need more workplace tournaments (good luck with that, accounting department), or being the best team day in and day out needs to count for more than awards for individual accomplishment and securing home field advantage in the tournament.