Winning Ways: Does it Pay to Be Competitive in the Workplace?

1. Pre-reading task
Are women at work more competitive, as competitive or less competitive than men? What is your opinion?

2. Read the text.
Judging how competitive we should be in today’s workplace is one of the most difficult problems for job-starters, according to Sue Cartright, an organizational psychologist. “We’ve inherited the values of the eighties, in which individualism and greed were rewarded,’ she points out, ‘yet the nineties encourage collaboration and cooperation.’
In fact, says Angela Baron of the Institute of Personnel and Development, a surprising number of people damage their career prospects on entering a new office because they misjudge how competitive they should be. There are solutions, however. ‘The first step is to find out about the environment itself,’ she suggests. ‘Too often, secretarial staff forget that, while you may not be a cut-throat sales person yourself, the chances are that if you are working among them, it’s a value likely to spread to the entire office.’
Watch how people work, she advises, because attitudes are not always predictable. For example, increasing number of organizations are attempting to create a non-hierarchical atmosphere. Among these is London-based ad agency St. Luke’s. ‘Nobody has a desk; they can sit and work anywhere,’ explains marketing manager Juliet Soskice. ‘There’s a collaborative atmosphere, with everyone encouraged to put forward ideas.’ A secretary trying to prove herself by any means possible would hardly be welcome.
According to organizational psychologist Judy Rose, you are less likely to be competitive if you are female. In fact new research by Peter York concludes that pushy women do not tend to make it to the top anyway. The study found that in very competitive environments, female staff could be anxious and intense. ‘It sounds like a stereotype but research shows women’s style tends to be one of cooperation rather one of competitiveness,’ Rose explains. ‘Even as young children, boys are brought up with a focus on competitive sports, whereas girls are brought up to share and play in groups.’ This, she believes, puts women at particular risk of being taken advantage of by more merciless colleagues.
Careers adviser Susan Jeffcock disagrees. ‘Another recent study by Tuvia Melamid found that most successful female managers exhibited ‘macho kick-ass’ characteristics. One of the reasons for this difference is that the York research focuses on managers who are mostly in their twenties and thirties. This shows how much age has to do with competitiveness – the latter group are 1980s children whereas the older women weren’t raised with such hard values.’

From the Guardian

3. Find out if the statements are TRUE or FALSE and correct the false ones:
1. Assertive and competitive people are welcome at St. Luke’s.
2. Everybody is encouraged to say what they think at St. Luke’s.
3. People at St. Luke’s have their own offices.
4. One non-hierarchical organization is St. Luke’s ad agency.
5. Some organizations are non-hierarchical, but their number is not increasing.
6. Even if you work with cut-throat salespeople, this will not affect you.
7. You should find out about the environment in order to know how to behave.
8. It’s rather easy to know how competitive to be when you start work in a new office.

4. The text has 5 paragraphs. Give a name to each of them.

5. Find the words in the text that mean the following:
1. … – a person who takes care of your mental health.
2. … – a quality describing an environment where ranks and positions are not important.
3. … – a quality of a person who fights hard to become more important or reach a more significant position.
4. … – a person you work with.
5. … – mutual help at work.
6. … – a quality of a not very kind and generous person.
7. … – people you work with, the staff of the company.
8. … – to tell beforehand what is going to happen.
9. … – a person who sells goods in a shop.
10. … – investigation which is done in some field.

6. Find synonyms or explain in English the meaning of the following words:
1. Adviser – …
2. Surprising – …
3. Staff – …
4. Value – …
5. Entire – …
6. Job-starter – …
7. Advantage – …
8. Stereotype – …
9. To encourage – …
10. To inherit – …

7. Make new words using the given prefixes and suffixes and the words below:
Prefixes and suffixes: mis-; -tion; - ment;- al; -ism, -ing; -able; -er; -ive; -ist; -ness; -less; -ful

Words:

1.	collaborate	9.	hierarchy
2.	develop	10.	organize
3.	individual	11.	compete
4.	market	12.	psychology
5.	predict	13.	cooperate
6.	judge	14.	advise
7.	secretary	15.	mercy
8.	manage	16.	success

8. Match the words to build new word combinations:

1. increasing	a. staff
2. organizational	b. atmosphere
3. to focus	c. of the eighties
4. reason	d. executive
5. female	e. psychologist
6. chief	f. number
7. collaborative	g. starter
8. the values	h. for the difference
9. predictable	i. attitudes
10. job	j. the research

 9. Do the puzzle by putting these blocks of letters in the correct order and find out the witty message that is hidden in them.

E M	I C T	S O M	E D	TR	AR	I U M	A T S
E F E	N T	E S .	O R I	O R E	P H A	N V	T H A

 

 

10. Find all the irregular verbs in the text and compose sentences of your own using them.

11. Find out all the adjectives in the text and give their three degrees of comparison
Ex. small – smaller – the smallest
attractive – more attractive – the most attractive

12. Organize a round-table discussion with your classmates. Discuss the question given in the title of the article.

The roles are:
1) Sue Cartright
2) Angela Baron
3) Juliet Soskice
4) Judy Rose
5) Peter York
6) Susan Jeffcock
7) Tuvia Melamid

(If you have more people in your group – let them be the members of St. Luke’s staff or choose the rules themselves.)

KEY:
5. 1. psychologist; 2. non-hierarchical; 3. pushy; 4. colleague; 5. cooperation; 6. merciless; 7. personnel; 8. predict; 9. sales person; 10. research
8. 1. f; 2. e; 3. j; 4. h; 5. a; 6. d; 7. b; 8. c; 9. i; 10. g
9. The hidden message is: Some defeats are more triumphant than victories.