What if the Relay Race Teaches a Better Lesson Than "Winner Takes All"?
One thought has been bothering me lately.
Why do we celebrate so many systems where one person takes all the rewards, while overlooking the power of teams?
Consider the 4 × 400 relay race.
The victory doesn't belong to the runner who crosses the finish line alone. It belongs to every athlete who carried the baton before him. One weak handoff, one missed stride, one moment of poor coordination—and the race is lost.
Success is shared.
Yet in many areas of life, business, and even sport, we continue to glorify the idea that a single winner deserves everything.
But is that really the lesson we should be teaching?
What if the fastest runner is slightly unwell on race day?
What if the difference between first and second is a fraction of a second?
Should one person receive all the recognition while the efforts of everyone else are forgotten?
The relay race offers a different perspective:
✅ Teamwork matters.
✅ Preparation matters.
✅ Trust matters.
✅ Consistency matters.
✅ Every contribution matters.
After more than four decades working with businesses, engineers, surveyors, and professionals across industries, I have rarely seen great achievements that were truly individual accomplishments.
Behind every success story, there is usually a relay team—people who shared knowledge, provided support, opened doors, corrected mistakes, and carried the baton forward.
Perhaps it is time we celebrated more relay races and fewer winner-takes-all contests.
Because lasting success is rarely about who runs the final leg.
It is about how well the baton was passed along the way.
What are your thoughts?
Is the relay race a better model for success than the winner-takes-all approach?