While reading HBR, I came across an article by Deepak Malhotra, a Harvard Business Professor and Author of the book Negotiation Genius. The article is called "When Winning Is Everything".  The article discusses that the primal urge to win and be very competitive can limit and severely impact our rational decision making.   Bidding wars can lead businesses into making decisions which may not be beneficial to them.  The author uses Boston Scientific's acquisition of Guidant as one of the examples.  The article also discusses how organizations can manage what the author called "Competitive Arousal" to create a winning situation without any negative impacts.

If you carefully read the article and understand the concepts, you can apply the same to your personal lives and jobs.  Happy Reading!