We use sports metaphors in business and sometimes the win-win, win-lose, lose-lose stuff gets pretty confusing. Do you have to “beat” someone to “win?”
How do you approach a situation that, seemingly at first blush, is a zero-sum game (i.e., for you to achieve your objective, you have to “beat” someone)? Stephen Covey puts forth the “win-win or no deal” model in his seminal classic, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. To summarize, his model is that we need to move away from our internal scripting, which constantly tells us that to win, someone has to lose.
How do we take this “effective habit” and add it to our toolbox of daily leadership behavior?
I want to recount a personal experience here where I had to force myself into this model. I hope that this anecdote illustrates how we can practice this daily leadership behavior.
I was working with a junior executive at my client’s organization to structure his operational processes. This junior executive, while receptive to my ideas, still had a lot of ownership with what he perceived to be his baby and was resisting some of the more impactful changes I was initiating. I had tried to orient him to my ideas, but he had resisted so far.
This is a quintessential example of the classic zero-sum game; for me to push through my recommendations to my ultimate client (who happened to be the CEO of this company), I would have to “beat” this guy, right? But this fellow was the key to actually executing the recommendations. Without his support, my recommendations would never leave the deck they graced, and my client wouldn’t be served well at all.
My initial response was to assume an adversarial position with him, i.e., “have it out” with him to “close” the issue once and for all. I just happened to read the pertinent section of the Covey book the night before I was to meet with the junior executive to hash things out. The “win-win or no deal” model really hit home, and I thought to myself that what I was planning to do was really not who I was – it was more of a conditioned, scripted response to a business situation. So, I rescripted myself and went about really understanding why this guy was resisting. His fears were that he didn’t think his team was ready for the new operational processes and that “the way we did things around here” would break. I gently reminded him that things had already broken, and worse, they had customers really upset about the quality and cost of services being rendered to them. When I helped him peel the onion and presented my recommendations as enablers to his goals, he saw that he would win – not only the productivity and quality battle on his own turf, but more importantly, in bringing his customers back.
Ultimately, what we must realize is that we work among human beings and not everything has to be viewed in terms of “beating” someone else to achieve your objectives. An effective leadership behavior, then, is to practice “transforming while enabling” – achieving your objectives by enabling others, not by beating them.
Here is a quick exercise to assess, evaluate and realign whether you are playing the “right” game:
1. Review your behavior over the past month at work. Grade yourself (Circle the grade you think you should get):
| Not Likely | Somewhat Likely | Likely | Very Likely | |
| Do you believe that for your idea/initiative to gain acceptance, you have to shut down other ideas/people? |
4 |
3 |
2 |
1 |
| Do you find yourself focusing more on the cons of other ideas/people rather than on the pros of your own ideas? |
4 |
3 |
2 |
1 |
| Do you react with an adversarial intent when you get pushback in meetings and legitimate discussions around ideas and recommendations? |
4 |
3 |
2 |
1 |
| Are you able to isolate the merits and demerits of various ideas and recommendations from the personalities of the “messengers?” |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
2. Add your individual grades. What is your total? Here is a handy guide to help you work on your leadership tolerance levels. Remember, this is not a one-time exercise – you must come back to this and grade yourself periodically to ensure you stay on the right track.
- Score between 12 and 16 – You are doing great. You are focused and objective about ideas. You have managed to stay away from mixing personalities with the merits of the ideas. You don’t necessarily feel that you “win” or “lose” – just that there may be good or bad ideas. Keep your focus on staying objective and secure.
- Score between 8 and 12 – The heat of the battle gets to you sometimes! Just remember – you can “win” without having to beat somebody down – or you can gracefully concur with someone without having been “beaten.”
- Score between 4 and 8 – You struggle with trying to isolate people from ideas and discussions. You strongly believe that you have to vanquish others to progress. Whether this is willful behavior or unintended is for you to evaluate. What is real, however, is that this mode of operation is definitely stopping you from climbing the leadership ascent curve. And ultimately, it is stopping you from finding fulfillment at work. As the workplace demographic evolves and people start to look at higher levels of human potential and fulfillment, the old ways of win-lose may not necessarily work for the best. Take an honest appraisal and work toward winning together. You do that by viewing and discussing ideas and initiatives dispassionately and impartially. In the long run, you will be leveraged as a true leader who can be depended upon even if you don’t always “get your way.” That is more rewarding than winning by rancor.
