The Win-Win Scenario
Once you’re capable to proactively manage your own life around your deepest values with integrity, wisdom and power, you’re ready to effectively synergize with others in a meaningful way. Whether you are the president of a company or the janitor, the moment you step from independence into interdependence in any capacity, you step into a leadership role. You are in a position of influencing other people. And one of the most foundations habits of effective interpersonal leadership is the habit of thinking Win/Win.
Win/Win is not a technique, it’s a total philosophy of human interaction. In fact, it is one of six paradigms of interaction. The alternative paradigms are Win/Lose, Lose/Win, Lose/Lose, Win, and ‘Win/Win or No Deal’. Win/Win is a frame of mind and heart that constantly seeks mutual benefit in all human interactions. Win/Win means that agreements or solutions are mutually beneficial, mutually satisfying. With a Win/Win solution, all parties feel good about the decision and feel committed to the action plan. Win/Win sees life as a cooperative journey, not a competitive arena. Most people tend to think in terms of dichotomies: strong or weak, hardball or softball, win or lose. But that kind of thinking is fundamentally flawed. It’s based on power and position rather than on principle.
Win/Win is based on the paradigm that there is plenty for everybody, that one person’s success is not achieved at the expense or exclusion of the success of others. Win/Win is a belief in the Third Alternative. It’s not your way or my way; it’s a better way, a higher way. In order to effectively create these kinds of scenarios we need to have a strong character, which is the foundation of Win/Win, and everything else builds on that foundation. It’s basically a scenario in which both parties win and benefit and nobody loses. In order to create these scenarios though, we must possess three character traits that are essential to the Win/Win paradigm.
The Win-Win Character
Integrity
As we clearly identify our values and proactively organize and execute around those values on a daily basis, we develop self-awareness and independent will by making and keeping meaningful promises and commitments. There’s no way to go for a Win in our own lives if we don’t even know, in a deep sense, what constitutes a Win - what is, in fact, harmonious with our innermost values. And if we can’t make and keep commitments to ourselves as well as to others, our commitments become meaningless. We know it, others know it. They sense a duplicity and become guarded. There’s no foundation of trust and Win/Win becomes an ineffective superficial technique. Integrity is the first cornerstone of a Win/Win character.
Maturity
Maturity is the balance between courage and consideration. It’s the ability to express one’s own feelings and convictions balanced with consideration for the thoughts and feelings of others. If you examine many of the psychological tests used for hiring, promoting, and training purposes, you will find that they are designed to evaluate this kind of maturity. Whether it’s called the ego strength/empathy balance, the self-confidence/respect for others balance, the concern for people/concern for task balance.
Respect for this quality is deeply ingrained in the theory of human interaction, management, and leadership. While courage may focus on getting the reward, consideration deals with the long-term welfare of the other people involved. The basis task of leadership is to increase the standard of living and the quality of life for all people involved.
Many people think in dichotomies, in either/or terms. They think if you’re nice, you’re not tough. But Win/Win is nice … and tough. It’s twice as tough as Win/Lose. To go for Win/Win, you not only have to be nice, you have to be courageous. You not only have to be empathic, you have to be confident. You not only have to be considerate and sensitive, but you also have to be brave. To do that, to achieve that balance between courage and consideration, is the essence of real maturity and is fundamental to Win/Win.
If I’m high on courage and low on consideration, how will I think? Win/Lose. I’ll be strong and ego-bound. I’ll have the courage of my convictions, but I won’t be very considerate of yours. To compensate for my lack of internal maturity and emotional strength, I might borrow strength from my position and power, or from my credentials, my seniority, my affiliations.
If I’m high on consideration and low on courage, I’ll think Lose/Win. I’ll be so considerate of your convictions and desires that I won’t have the courage to express and actualize my own. High courage and consideration are both essential to Win/Win. It is the balance that is the mark of real maturity. If I have it, I can listen, I can empathically understand, but I can also courageously confront. For more depth you can consider reading this article as it dives deep into the 3 Stages of the Maturity Continuum.
Abundance Mentality
The third character trait essential to Win/Win is the Abundance Mentality, the paradigm that there is plenty out there for everybody. Most people are deeply scripted in what I call the Scarcity Mentality. They see life as having only so much, as though there were only one pie out there. And if someone were to get a big piece of the pie, it would mean less for everybody else. The Scarcity Mentality is the zero-sum paradigm of life.
People with Scarcity Mentality have a very difficult time sharing recognition and credit, power or profit - even with those who help in the production. They also have a very hard time being genuinely happy for the successes of other people - even, and sometimes especially, members of their own family or close friends and associates. It’s almost as if something is being taken from them when someone else receives special recognition or windfall gain or has remarkable success or achievement. Although they might verbally express happiness for others’ success, inwardly they are eating their hearts out. Their sense of worth comes from being compared, and someone else’s success, to some degree, means their failure.
The Abundance Mentality, on the other hand, flows out of a deep inner sense of personal worth and security. It is the paradigm that there is plenty out there and enough to spare for everybody. It results in sharing of prestige, of recognition, of profits, of decision making. It opens possibilities, options, alternatives, and creativity. The Abundance Mentality takes the personal joy, satisfaction, and fulfillment of personal success and projects it outward, appreciating the uniqueness, the inner direction, the proactive nature of others. It recognizes the unlimited possibilities for positive interactive growth and development, creating new Win/Win situations. A deeper peak in New Age economics can be read here.
Conclusion
Public Victory does not mean victory over other people; It means success in effective interaction that brings mutually beneficial results to everyone involved. Public Victory means working together, communicating together, making things happen together that even the same people couldn’t make happen by working independently. And Public Victory is an outgrowth of the Abundance Mentality paradigm. A character-rich in integrity, maturity, and the Abundance Mentality has a genuineness that goes far beyond technique, or lack of it, in human interaction.
One thing I found particularly helpful to Win/Lose people in developing a Win/Win character is to associate with some model or mentor who really thinks Win/Win. When people are deeply scripted with Win/Lose or other philosophies and regularly associate with others who are likewise scripted, they don’t have much opportunity to see and experience the Win/Win philosophy in action. So I recommend reading literature, such as the inspiring biography of Anwar Sadat, In Search for Identity, and seeing movies like Chariots of Fire that expose you to models of Win/Win.
But never forget that if we search deeply enough within ourselves - beyond the scripting, beyond the learned attitudes and beyond the conditioned behavior - the real validation of Win/Win, as well as every other correct principle, is already alive ready to be expressed.
Transcript of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey