Continuing our series on the Seven Habits.
The first three habits are inward facing. Habits four through six are more interpersonal. And finally with the fourth habit, the title accurately describes it and I don’t have to explain what it really means. In relationships, business dealings, negotiations, and disputes, you should seek to find solutions where both you and the other party come out ahead.
But before we get to this, Covey has an interlude where he discusses the Paradigms of Interdependence. The key idea here is that between individuals, there is an emotional bank account. This is a measure of how much trust, love, and good will there is going in each direction.
“Really seeking to understand another person is probably one of the most important deposits you can make, and it is the key to every other deposit … The little kindnesses and courtesies are so important. Small discourtesies, little unkindnesses, little forms of disrespect make large withdrawals. In relationships, the little things are big things … Keeping a commitment or a promise is a major deposit; breaking one is a major withdrawal. In fact, there’s probably not a more massive withdrawal than to make a promise that’s important to someone and then to not come through.”
As for thinking Win-Win, this would be distinct from Win-Lose (I’m going to make myself better off by screwing over the other guy), Lose-Win (I’m going to sacrifice myself for the other person), or Lose-Lose (Where someone is so bitter and angry that they’re willing to hurt themselves just to punish the other person, which sometimes happens in messy divorces, lawsuits, politics, dysfunctional marriages, and arguments on the internet.) This is also distinct from Compromise, where both parties sacrifice something to arrive at a solution that they’re sort of happy, sort of unhappy with. Win-Win means both parties are unambiguously better.
Even better is the paradigm of Win-Win or No Deal. This is where you agree ahead of time that if you can’t find a solution that makes both parties better off, you’ll walk away with no hard feelings. This makes sense in business dealings, but probably not in other contexts. Like, if you’re discussing with your spouse who should be on diaper duty and can’t come up with a solution that makes both of you better off, it wouldn’t make sense to say, “Oh well. I guess nobody will do it. Let’s go to the movies instead.”
The key focus here is to have an Abundance Mentality.
“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.”
So what’s the skeptical view on this? I think the idea of the emotional bank account does make sense. However, I’m not a huge fan of thinking about interpersonal relationships – especially close relationships – in such transactional terms. When you do this, it’s too easy to fall into a trap of replacing what should be a foundation of respect and affection with a system of barter. As in, “I do this for you, and you do this for me.”
To be clear, this isn’t what Covey is suggesting you do, and I can’t find fault with anything he says in this section. Just that when you are thinking of things in terms of an emotional bank account, you need to be careful to consider it in terms of trust, respect, and affection, rather than favors. And also, to remember that this is all just a metaphor. Deposits into your emotional bank account don’t actually entitle you to anything in return.
For thinking Win-Win, we need to separate that into personal relationships, and business relationships.
For personal relationships, of course it’s great if you can come up with Win-Win solutions whenever you have a conflict or disagreement. But that’s highly unrealistic. If there was a Win-Win solution, you wouldn’t be having the disagreement in the first place. What’s better is seeing yourselves as a team, and finding the solution that is best for the team. And that is most likely going to involve compromise. (And as I mentioned above, Win-Win Or No Deal is even less realistic.)
But on a more fundamental level, the relationship itself should be Win-Win Or No Deal. Being in the relationship should make both parties better off. If a romantic or friendship relationship doesn’t make both parties better off, you should end it, or not start it in the first place. There are some obvious exceptions to this: A parent-child relationship can’t be No Deal (though you would certainly hope it’s Win-Win), and you wouldn’t want to say “Oh, caring for my wife while she’s dying of cancer is really bumming me out, so I’m leaving.” But in general, this is a good way to live.
When it comes to commerce, my first thought when it came to Covey’s notion of Win-Win Or No Deal was “Well, duh.” This describes the overwhelming majority of transactions. I’d rather have a cheeseburger than the money it costs to buy one, and McDonalds would rather have my money than a cheeseburger, so I give them my money in exchange for a cheeseburger and we’re both better off. My employer would rather have the work I do than the money they pay me, and I’d rather have my salary than the time I put into my job, so we’re both better off. In contrast, I’d rather keep my money than buy a Ferrari I can’t afford, and the Ferrari dealer would rather not sell me a car, then repossess it when I can’t make the payments on it, then be stuck with a used car that’s worth way less than a new car. So we don’t make a deal, and we don’t have any ill will about that.
But then it occurred to me that the Abundance Mentality, and the idea of mutual exchange for mutual benefit is obvious to me, but it may not be obvious to everyone else. All the time I read stories and comments on Reddit that reflect the notion that workers and employers are enemies. And I honestly don’t know if this is a warped view of the world by the people writing on Reddit, or an accurate description of dysfunctional workplaces.
An awful lot of people do seem view the world through a lens of “Me vs. Them” or “Us vs. Them,” instead of through the lens of “How can we all be better off?”* So upon further thought, I do think Covey’s admonitions about thinking Win-Win-Or-No-Deal when it comes to commerce is necessary.
* I’ve mentioned before that I keep this blog as a politics-free-zone, and I want to make clear that I’m not pointing fingers at a particular political side. As far as I’ve noticed, this attitude is just as common on both sides. Please don’t start arguing about which side is worse. By doing so, you yourself would ironically become an example of this attitude on your side.
[…] Habit Four: Think Win-Win […]