What if winning doesn't identify who is best, but who is best at the particular version of excellence we decided to reward?

The Possibility

Perhaps winning doesn't reveal who is best in any absolute sense. Perhaps it reveals who performs best under the particular conditions we've chosen to measure.

The Reasoning

Imagine the Olympic 100-metre final.

Eight athletes compete. One wins gold and is declared the fastest.

But imagine the finish line had been twenty metres further away.

The same athlete might not have won. They might even have finished last.

Nothing about the athletes needed to change. Only the distance.

The winner of the 100-metre race is beyond dispute. But what exactly has that victory established?

That the athlete was the fastest over 100 metres, under those conditions.

Not necessarily over 120 metres. Or 200 metres. Or any other distance.

Now consider business, education and life.

A company can be the most profitable over five years but not fifty. A student can achieve the highest examination score without being the most capable of solving unfamiliar problems.

Every system of competition defines what counts, what gets measured and what gets rewarded.

What if we sometimes mistake winning within a system for superiority beyond it?

The Consequence

If moving a finish line by twenty metres can change who we call the fastest, how many people do we call the best simply because we never question the conditions under which they won?

All questions