Gracious Professionalism and Coopertition
The FIRST® Core Values of Teamwork, Inclusion, Impact, Fun, Discovery, and Innovation are expressed through Gracious Professionalism® and Coopertition®.
Video: Gracious Professionalism with Woodie Flowers
Quoting from the Engineering Notebook:
Gracious Professionalism is a way of doing things that encourages high-quality work, emphasizes the value of others, and respects individuals and the community.
Coopertition shows that learning is more important than winning. Teams can help others even as they compete.
Let's consider these two terms, starting with gracious professionalism® and with the help of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary:
1 a : marked by kindness and courtesy
b : characterized by charm, good taste, generosity of spirit, and the customs and manners of polite society
1 : the skill, good judgment, and polite behavior that is expected from a person who is trained to do a job well
Kindness, courtesy, politeness, manners, charm... clearly gracious professionalism requires treating others, both teammates and competitors, well. What else, though? What else does professionalism require? Consider the first two items listed in the definition above. Skill. Good judgment. While that may seem a stretch when you're just beginning to learn, the reality of life, even at the highest levels of performance, is that you never stop learning.
So no matter how meager your skills or how inexperienced your judgement, by aiming to improve the skills and judgement of you, your teammates, and your competitors, you are acting like a professional. We don't tear each other down, we help each other get better. We encourage each other. We make sure everyone contributes as best they can,
Which leads us into the second concept, coopertition®. Clearly this is mash-up of two words, cooperation and competition:
1 : the act or process of competing : rivalry
2 : a contest between rivals
1 : the actions of someone who is being helpful by doing what is wanted or asked for : common effort
2 : association of persons for common benefit
It seems like a paradox. How can we be in a contest between rivals, a competition, a game with winners and losers, and yet also be helpful and acting for mutual benefit?
To understand, we have to remember that the purpose of FIRST® competition is not to get better at winning FIRST® competitions, to get awards or accolades. It's not for bragging rights. It is rather to develop our interpersonal and problem-solving skills, using competition as the driver, the motivator, for us to improve.
Imagine you and your friend want to get faster at running. If you meet up every day for a nice jog, but don't really push each other, you are unlikely to improve. But if you make it a friendly race--challenging each other to go faster and encouraging each other to keep going when tired--you will improve rapidly. The race makes it fun, makes you work hard, and makes you improve.
Some of the greatest achievements in science, technology, sports, and the arts have been born out of friendly (and also bitter) rivalries.
So, to me, coopertition means to work hard, to do our best, and to challenge each other and other teams, not to dominate and gloat, but to encourage each other to give it our best and discover what we can accomplish. It also recognizes that by helping our competition we not only help them improve, but also raise the bar for our own performance.
All in good fun!
See: What Gracious Professionalism Means to Me: 25 Voices from the FIRST Community