Seven habits of highly effective people - Stephen R. Covey [90]
Let's now focus on each of the Public Victory habits in depth.
Habit 4: Think Win-Win TM --Principles of Interpersonal Leadership
We have committed the Golden Rule to memory; let us now commit it to life.
--Edwin Markha
*
*
One time I was asked to work with a company whose president was very concerned about the lack of cooperation among his people.
"Our basic problem, Stephen, is that they're selfish," he said. "They just won't cooperate. I know if they would cooperate, we could produce so much more. Can you help us develop a human-relations program that will solve the problem?"
"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 unwillingness to cooperate, a resistance to authority, defensive communication. I could see that overdrawn Emotional Bank Accounts had created a culture of low trust. But I pressed the question.
"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 were 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, an idyllic picture of blue skies and fleecy clouds and a romantic couple walking hand in hand down a white sandy beach.
Once a week, this man would bring all his people into this office and talk cooperation. "Let's all work together. We'll all make more money if we do." Then he would pull the curtain and show them the chart. "Now which of you is going to win the trip to Bermuda?" It was like telling one flower to grow and watering another, like saying "firings will continue until morale improves." He wanted cooperation. He wanted his people to work together, to share ideas, to
all benefit from the effort. But he was setting them up in competition with each other. One manager's success meant failure for the other managers
As with many, many problems between people in business, family, and other relationships, the problem in this company was the result of a flawed paradigm. The president was trying to get the fruits of cooperation from a paradigm of competition. And when it didn't work, he wanted a technique, a program, a quick-fix antidote to make his people cooperate. But you can't change the fruit without changing the root. Working on the attitudes and behaviors would have been hacking at the leaves. So we focused instead on producing personal and organizational excellence in an entirely different way by developing information and reward systems which reinforced the value of cooperation.
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 the habit of effective interpersonal leadership is Think Win-Win.
Six Paradigms of Human Interaction
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 TM
Win-Win
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, 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