Principles of Interpersonal Leadership
Habit 4 - Think Win/Win
What is the reward for not cooperating?
This may sound like an odd question, but it is an important first lesson from Habit 4. Many times we believe we are fostering cooperation, when really, we’ve created a competition.
Let’s look at the example that starts the chapter.
We are introduced to the president of a company that Covey worked with. The president was concerned about the lack of cooperation between his staff.
“Our basic problem, Stephen, is that they’re selfish,” he said. “They just won’t cooperate.”
“Is your problem the people or the paradigm?” I asked
“Look for yourself,” he replied.
So I did. And I found that there was a real selfishness, and unwillingess to cooperate, a resistence to authority, and defensive communication.
“Let’s look at it deeper,” I suggested. “Why don’t your people cooperate? What is the reward for not cooperating?”
“There’s no reward for not cooperating,” he assured me. “The rewards are much greater if they do cooperate.”
“Are they?” I asked. Behind a curtain on one wall of this man’s office was a chart. On the chart wee a number of racehorses all lined up on a track. Superimposed on the face of each horse was the face of one of his managers. At the end of the track was a beautiful travel poster of Bermuda.
Once a week, this man would bring all his people into this office and talk cooperation. “Let’s all work together. Then he would pull the curtain and show them the chart. “Now which of you is going to win the trip to Bermud?”
The president was trying to get the fruits of cooperation from a paradigm of competition.
The reason this story is so important is because of the early lesson. When stepping into a leadership role, you are in a position of influencing other people.
It is easy to be like the president and say, “They’re just selfish and lazy!” But the truth is, if we want people’s behaviors to change, we have to understand the root of the problem. In the case above, the problem was a faulty reward system.
That is why I started with the question, what is the reward for not cooperating? It is much easier to seek an immediate change of the behavior rather than take the time to consider the system. But if we do take the time to consider the system then we might be able to naturally change behaviors to our desired result.
You can’t change the fruit without changing the root. Working on attitudes and behaviors would have been hacking at the leaves.
So how do we make sure we’re focused on the roots? How do we build trusting and cooperative relationships?
By thinking Win/Win
Six Paradigms of Human Interaction
Win/Win is not a technique; it’s a total philosophy of human interaction.
Win/Win is considered the ultimate paradigm, but Covey lays out five others. We’ll go through each one and see how they differ. Consider which one appears to line up most with your own paradigm.
Win/Win
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.
Most people tend to think in terms of dichotomies: strong and 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 sees life as cooperative, not a competitive arena. One person’s success is not achieved at the expense or exclusion of the success of others.
Win/Lose
In leadership style, Win/Lose is the authoritarian approach: “I get my way; you don’t get yours.” Win/Lose people are prone t use position, power, credentials, possessions, or personality to get their way.
Value does not lie inside them, it lies outside. It’s in comparison with somebody else or against some expectations.
The academic world reinforces Win/Lose scripting. It interprets an individuals value by comparing him or her to everyone else. No recognition is given to intrinsic value; everyone is intrinsically defined.
Lose/Win
People who think Lose/Win are usually quick to please or appease. They seek strength from popularity or acceptance. They have little courage to express their own feelings and convictions and are easily intimidated by the ego strength of others.
People who are constantly repressing, not transcending feelings towards a higher meaning find that it affects the quality of their self-esteem and eventually the quality of their relationships with others.
Many executives, managers, and parents swing back and forth, as if on a pendulum, from Win/Lose inconsideration to Lose/Win indulgence.
Lose/Lose
Some people become so centered on an enemy, so totally obsessed with the behavior of another person that they become blind to everything except their own desire for that person to lose, even if it means losing themselves.
Lose/Lose is also the philosophy of the highly dependent person without inner direction who is miserable and thinks everyone else should be, too. “If nobody ever wins, perhaps being a loser isn’t so bad.”
Win
People with the Win mentality don’t necessarily want someone else t lose. That’s irrelevant. What matters is that they et what they want.
Win mentality thinks in terms of securing his own ends - and leaving it to others to secure theirs.
Win/Win or No Deal
No Deal basically means that if we can’t find a solution that would benefit us both, we agree to disagree agreeably - No Deal.
When you have No Deal as an option in your mind, you feel liberated because you have no need to manipulate people, to push your own agenda, to drive for what you want. You can be open. You can really try to understand the deeper issues underlying the positions.
Of course, there are some relationships where NO Deal is not viable. I wouldn’t abandon my child or my spouse and go for No Deal (it would be better, if necessary, to go for compromise - a low form of Win/Win).
The goal of this Habit is to get us to develop a cooperative way of interacting with the world - Win/Win. Even if we can’t get it exactly, we can choose between Compromise and No Deal.
Win/Win is not about judging others for their behavior and then hacking at the leaves to try to bring change. Strong leaders tend to the roots, making sure the system is in proper working order.
Tomorrow, we’ll go over the 5 dimensions of Win/Win to see how we can properly incorporate this paradigm into our own lives.