Thread by @chrissanders88

This was something I left intentionally vague in the poll to see how people interpreted it. Namely, some interpreted as competitive within your team, others as competitive in relation to a goal/adversary. Reveals some predispositions and bias, perhaps?

https://twitter.com/IISResetMe/status/1321123690399076354

Consider the example of a wide receiver. They are internally competitive with their teammates because there are only so many spots on the team and passes to catch. At the same time, they are externally competitive towards the other team because they want to win the game.

In security, I observe that internal competitiveness is often over exhibited relative to the value and external competitiveness under exhibited relative to the value.

A key being, that if competitiveness is a trait, folks who have it need to let it out. The more thoughtfully you can redirect that toward external goals, probably the better.

Is internal competitiveness a bad thing? Too much almost certainly is, and even a little can be when combined with some other personality traits. Some is almost certainly beneficial. Lots and lots of nuance here.

There's also a difference between folks who are competitive with others versus exclusively with themselves. For example, folks who try to PR their bike rides or runs every time they work out but don't worry so much about everyone else on the leaderboard.

A monkey wrench in all of this is that some non-competitive folks underperform in the presence of outwardly competitive folks. So, making everything a competition can really undercut progress depending on the makeup of the personalities on a team.

There's a lot of movement to gamify things in security education and I think that definitely helps some folks, but it actively hurts others when the only option includes a leaderboard. You won't hear this from these folks many times bc they aren't likely to speak up about it.

This is one reason why I don't do CTFs or other competitions in my classes, btw. I don't fault folks who do incorporate these things, I just take a different approach with individualized. feedback-driven, deliberate practice labs.

Unlike lots of personality traits, folks are usually pretty decent at rating whether they think they are competitive or not. In security, you can often get at this by asking directly. You can also ask if folks like to do things like CTFs, etc.

I think, regardless, it's helpful to know which of your teammates are competitive and which ones aren't. Chances are that you already know if you sit down and think through it. This speaks to a level of emotional intelligence and empathy which is useful in work and life.