Politics
Creating Win/Win solutions
The concept of win/win first came to my attention when I did a workshop in 1990 with Danaan Parry, the author of “Warriors of the Heart”. He was the first person who was able to resolve the conflict in my mind about whether it was better to be competitive or co-operative. According to his theory about win/win solutions, it is when we are highly competitive AND highly co-operative, that we get to “win/win”. If we are highly competitive and low on co-operation, we look for win/lose solutions….if we are half-heartedly competitive and half-heartedly co-operative, we look for compromises. Since that meeting with Danaan Parry, I have always taken a stand for collaboration (win/win) instead of making compromises. This is fine when everyone is looking at the situation with the same paradigm….not often the case in practice!
Stephen Covey, author of “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” also lists “Win/Win” as being one of the seven most successful habits. He writes:
“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” p 207.
Covey lists various character traits we need to have in order to create win/win solutions, for example integrity, maturity and an abundance mentality which is the paradigm that there is plenty out there for everybody.
He warns that “win/win can only survive in an organisation when the systems support it. If you talk win/win but reward win/lose you’ve got a losing program on your hands” p. 229
How good is your business in creating win/win solutions with competitors?
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