Don't kill Your Competition – Find a Symbiotic Solution

Josh Klein’s exposition on how to get crows to cooperate with human beings is a creative example of how we can work with other species to both our advantages – a classic case of symbiosis.

What about in business? Competitors are usually seen as a threat to an established dominance – a threat which some would want to quash or crush out of existence, in order to maintain a singular stranglehold on a hard-won market.

But is there another, more eco-centric way of doing business? Does conscious capitalism provide any possible solutions to such an survival-of-the-fittest approach?

Obviously I believe "yes" is the answer to these questions. Josh’s TED talk raises important questions on how we should do business in the rapidly changing twenty first century. We need, as Richard Dawkins would wholeheartedly agree, to move beyond evolutionary behavio(u)r, to a new paradigm in which forging links with like-minded entrepreneurs forces us to think creatively to find solutions in which we both benefit – the win-win, rather than win-lose methodologies that dominated the last century.

But, you might think – isn’t this all a bit idealistic, with so many out there still preferring the smell of blood rather than the smell of fresh bread shared around a table?

After all, the litigation industry has its wheels oiled by the kill or be killed approach, so why try and do something different?

Well, like Josh Klein, I would argue that there is, in the long run, a much better way of living, in which there is something for everyone to gain. My role is to find those business partners who share this approach, and with eyes open to the wolves, defend myself against those who are solely out to destroy. Let me be clear – I am talking metaphorically here, in case anyone is worried by such language.

So – why not make the crows in your life a benefit, and not attempt to just wipe them out?