Coopetition: the art of cooperating with your competitors

" Alone, we go faster. Together, we go further. "

African proverb

In a world where coopetition reigns, our competitors can also be our partners — just look at Apple and Samsung. Coopetition, a term that blends the ideas of cooperation and competition, is the art of collaborating with your competitors in a spirit of mutual benefit. This mindset completely challenges the notion that competition must exclude cooperation. This is especially true for senior executives in multinational corporations and particularly relevant in highly elitist cultures like that of Europe.

On the other hand, the Catalyst study (2017) “The Competitive Advantage of Women Leaders” shows that women are just as competitive as men, but they are more motivated by collective success and the development of others. So, embracing coopetition within a team—especially by leaning more on women’s leadership—means embracing a culture of “co-” in how we build and grow together.

A separate study ("The Diminishing Marginal Utility of Income", published in 2010 in Psychological Science) showed that individuals prefer to earn less if it means gaining more autonomy. This is the opposite of what companies often want: they need to strengthen the collective so that the pie gets bigger for everyone.

Synergies can emerge when competitors identify areas where they can share resources, knowledge, or infrastructure, thereby improving overall efficiency. This is the core idea behind lot theory (theory of bundling). This approach also fosters innovation, allowing teams to collaborate on R&D projects, explore new market opportunities, and share best practices.
In many industries, we already see alliances between competitors: Apple and Samsung, Renault and Nissan, IBM and Microsoft, Nestlé and Starbucks.
If companies can do it, so can leaders.
In many professions, including ours, we often speak of “colleagues” rather than competitors!

The collaborative battle

Another example of coopetition is the French Defense Innovation Agency (AID), which was created to coordinate innovation efforts within the Ministry of Defense and align them with potential disruption scenarios. For this purpose, a “Red Team” was assembled—composed of science fiction writers and futurists. Their role is to anticipate how emerging technologies could be used in unexpected ways by malicious actors and to develop strategies accordingly.

What can we learn from competition in nature? The metaphor of the tree by Richard Dawkins

“Tree trunks are standing monuments to futile competition,” says British biologist Richard Dawkins. He uses the metaphor of the “Forest of Friendship” to show how evolution and natural competition can sometimes lack intelligence.

According to him, a forest canopy is like “aerial grassland... lifted up on stilts... collecting sunlight.” Yet much of that energy “is wasted just lifting the stilts,” which merely raise the leaves to the sky to collect the same amount of sunlight that they would at ground level—but at a much lower cost.

No single tree can afford to ignore the competition for height. But if trees could somehow agree to limit their height, each would conserve energy, and the forest as a whole would be more efficient.

This illustrates how natural competition can lead to wasted energy or talent—whereas cooperation or coordination could result in more efficient outcomes for the entire ecosystem.

And you—how could you collaborate with your competitors?

#coopetition #cooperation #competition #sharing #efficiency