Uncompete - by Ruchika T Malhotra (Hardcover)

About the Book

"A timely and transformative new framework for success from a sought-after strategist, speaker, and author"-- Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

A NATIONAL BESTSELLER

One of Thinkers50's 10 Best Management Books for 2026

A timely and transformative new framework for success from a sought-after strategist, speaker, and author

The need to compete is deeply ingrained in every aspect of our lives and work. It's often viewed as a positive: we are told it motivates us to do our best, to work hard, that it drives innovation and excellence. But, what if that's a lie? What if in reality, competition causes more harm than good: exhaustion, anxiety, burnout, and an isolating lack of community. It encourages a scarcity mindset and keeps us from reaching our true potential.

Drawing on Ruchika's own experiences working with corporations as a sought-after inclusion strategist, as well as interviews from business and community leaders and the latest research data, UNCOMPETE offers a new framework for building a culture of collaboration, solidarity, and mutuality. It's a framework that yields not only a happier workplace, but a far more successful one, and it can transform our work and our lives. From showing us how to tap into our benign envy, to investigate our cultural norms, to cultivate a greater imagination, and rewrite the rules to lift everyone up, UNCOMPETE is a radical reset of our mindsets. It helps us cultivate abundance, find genuine joy in others' victories, and embody the belief that there is room for all of us to succeed.

Review Quotes

"Powerful . . . reading her words is like escaping from the Matrix and realizing that there is a different way to look at the world than what I typically think of as natural."
--TD Magazine

"Capitalism would have you believe that success is only measured by how well you compete against those around you, even though many of us marginalized by these same systems have survived for generations only through collaboration and connectedness. With Uncompete, Malhotra helps us reconnect to our communities and ourselves so that we can build better and more sustainable visions of success, together."
--Ijeoma Oluo, New York Times bestselling author of So You Want to Talk About Race

"Uncompete will fundamentally shift how we think about success and collaboration. Ruchika Malhotra has given the world an extraordinary gift--a research-backed framework that replaces toxic competition with genuine collective success. This isn't just a book; it's the beginning of a movement that will transform how we work and succeed together."
--Amy Gallo, author of Getting Along

"Uncompete is a powerful and deeply resonant manifesto for those of us who are exhausted by hustle culture and disillusioned by the myth that competition is the only path to success. Malhotra dismantles that myth and offers us something far more transformative: a vision of work rooted in collaboration, abundance, and belonging. It's not just timely--it's essential reading for anyone ready to reimagine and build a better way forward."
--Uché Blackstock, MD, New York Times bestselling author of Legacy

"Uncompete exposes the explicit and unspoken rules that keep us stuck in cycles of comparison, scarcity, and silent competition and offers a bold new model for business and personal leadership. This is more than a book. It's a call to action asking each of us to reimagine what success can look like when we stop playing by outdated scripts."
--Deepa Purushothaman, author of The First, the Few, the Only

"Uncompete names what so many of us feel but rarely say aloud: that constant competition isn't making us better--it's actually making us sick. Uncompete is a powerful call to reimagine success as something we do with each other, not against each other."
--Pooja Lakshmin, MD, author of Real Self-Care

"A radical message of redefining success . . . For readers interested in another way to live, advance, and succeed in their professional and personal lives, Malhotra's holistic approach to workplace and social behavior offers a path toward individual and collective fulfillment developed with generosity and solidarity."
--Library Journal

"[Malhotra's] perspective is novel and eye-opening . . . this will help readers rethink the idea that life is a zero-sum game."
--Publishers Weekly

About the Author

Ruchika T. Malhotra is the founder of Candour, a global inclusion strategy firm that has worked with some of the world's biggest organizations. A former business journalist, she is now a regular contributor to Harvard Business Review. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Forbes, Bloomberg, The Seattle Times, and more. She has held adjunct faculty positions at the University of Washington and Seattle University and is the author of Inclusion on Purpose: An Intersectional Approach to Creating a Culture of Belonging at Work, MIT Press's top-selling book of 2022.