竞争上岗变身真人秀

    在镜头前，参赛者分成几组，运营商场里一个生意红火的店面，交换着从事翻动如意卷、处理顾客投诉和分发样品等工作。这段视频模仿了真人秀电视节目的风格，不仅有充满戏剧性的停顿，选手采访环节，还出现了一位不速之客：公司创始人安妮•贝勒假扮顾客的模样，点了一份如意卷。

    “比赛过程扣人心弦。选手需要在较短的时间内，在镜头前对刚刚发生的事情做出反应，”比赛获胜者克莱森特•查普曼说。“我的心一直跳个不停。”查普曼是密歇根州格兰维尔市一家分店的经理。

    这段视频也让A&E TV电视台产生了灵感，它在一个名为《我要当老板》（Be the Boss）的全新系列剧中专门为安缇安如意卷公司制作了一期节目。参与这期节目的如意卷分店经理有机会赢得一个属于自己的如意卷店面。

    这类电视竞赛节目现在还出现了另一个主题：团队建设。一家名叫Canadian Outback的加拿大公司根据《极速前进》（The Amazing Race）、《顶级厨师》（Top Chef）和《飞黄腾达》等备受欢迎的真人秀节目，为eBay、雀巢（Nestle）和通用磨坊（General Mills）等客户组织团队建设活动。

    但对于组织而言，这种模仿真人秀的比赛是否肯定有益？《不要比赛：反对竞争的理由》（The Case Against Competition）一书的作者阿尔•菲科恩说，几十年来在工作场所和课堂进行的研究表明，这种比赛不仅不起作用，其实还会产生适得其反的结果——特别是一些需要创意或者需要解决更复杂问题的任务。

    “表面看起来，这是个不错的主意，但最终赢得比赛的，往往是大傻瓜，你肯定不希望在工作场所看到这一幕，”专门从事职场幸福感研究的荷兰咨询师亚历山大谢吕尔夫补充道。他说，与大多数人的认识恰恰相反，一旦参与比赛，我们大多数人的表现都比平时糟糕。

    在Aflac公司，《美国偶像》式的竞赛并不一定能够体现出31岁的合规分析师布伦娜•斯基恩最擅长的一面。2010年，她之所以站在了评委的面前，是因为她想获得一份更有挑战性的工作，但她却把这次经历描述成为一起“火车事故”。当评委看着她，几乎一句话也不说的时候，斯基恩放弃了最初拟定的脚本。她说：“那一幕太可怕了。”

    这次比赛经历让她知道，她更适合后端数据处理工作，而不是担任销售部门的领导。让她心存感激的是，这场比赛让她有机会表明自己想多做点工作的心愿，因为自那以后，这家保险公司合规部门的管理层提升了她三次。

    On camera, contestants divided into teams and ran a busy store inside a mall, swapping jobs rolling pretzels, handling customer complaints, and handing out samples. The video mimicked the style of realty TV with dramatic pauses, contestant interviews, and a surprise visit from the company founder Anne Beiler, who ordered a pretzel in disguise.

    "They kept you in suspense and would take you aside and get you to respond to what just happened on camera," says Crescent Chapman, a Grandville, Mich. store manager who won the contest. "My heart would be racing."

    The video prompted A&E TV to feature Auntie Anne's in a new series called Be the Boss. In the episode, pretzel store managers competed for the chance to win their own pretzel operation.

    TV competition themes are playing out in yet another way: team-building exercises. A Canada-based company called Canadian Outback puts on team-building events based on popular shows like The Amazing Race, Top Chef, and The Apprentice for clients like eBay (EBAY), Nestle, and General Mills (GIS).

    But is that kind of reality TV competition necessarily healthy for organizations? For decades, studies in workplaces and classrooms have shown that competition isn't just ineffective but actually counterproductive -- particularly on tasks that require creativity or more sophisticated problem solving, says Alfi Kohn, author of No Contest: The Case Against Competition.

    On the surface, it sounds good, but usually it's the biggest jerk who wins, which is what you don't want in the workplace," adds Alexander Kjerulf, a Dutch consultant who focuses on happiness at work. He says that contrary to what most people think, most of us perform worse when we're competing.

    At Aflac, the Idol-style competition didn't necessarily bring out the best in Brenna Skeen, a 31-year-old Aflac compliance analyst. In 2010, she stood in front of judges because she wanted more challenges in her job but she describes the experience as a "train wreck" in which she veered away from her intended script as judges looked at her and said little. "It was terrifying," says Skeen.

    The competition taught her that she is better suited to handle back-end data jobs rather than a sales leadership position. She was grateful for the chance to make it known that she wanted more in her job because managers since promoted her three times inside the insurer's compliance department.