Is Win-Win Always Possible?

Hello!

This habit (I believe it's the fifth) has its roots in an abundance mentality (as opposed to the scarcity mentality), which means believing that there is enough to go round for everybody to get what they want, and it isn't always that if you get what you want, I will lose, or vice versa.

Now I must say having been schooled in the Singapore education system, which tends to focus on getting good grades, the win-lose mentality is pretty ingrained in me.  I.e. there can only be one top scorer in the class, and if I help you do well, you will do better than me and I will no longer be number one.  Hence, for the extremely kiasu among us (guilty as charged for my earlier school years - thankfully I changed quite a bit after I became a Christian), the idea of helping others succeed, get what they want, is pretty alien, as it is usually all about me, me, me.  And the idea that somehow, there are limited "goodies" in this world (e.g. wealth, coveted positions, power, even eligible partners), and we are all in a competition against one another to get those goodies, also seems like an accurate reflection of reality.  I suppose this could thus be pretty much the mindset of many people.

However, to practice this habit well, requires actually understanding many perspectives (that's where the habit of seeking to first understand comes in), cos actually, we may find that what we perceived as a "lose" for us, may actually not be so, or can be avoided through an ingenious new solution, if we really understood what the other person wanted to achieve.  I give an example of a class I took in my university where the Professor split us into 2 teams and gave us a different brief for each team.  The briefs stated that we were from a pharmaceutical company (A or B depending on which team), flying to another country to try to get the last remaining 5 eggs from a precious bird for a product we were making.  The other rival company also wants the same eggs for another product they are making.  On our flight, we sit next to the representative from our rival company, and we are supposed to negotiate with them such that we can get what we want.  On the surface, this looks like a straightforward win-lose proposition.  Some teams ended up with a compromise - you get 3, I get 2 or something like that.  Some argued long and hard and arrived at no conclusion.  However, when it ended, the Professor got us to read our briefs aloud, and he pointed out (I actually missed it) that if we paid attention, both companies were after different parts of the egg!  One wanted the yolk, another wanted the shell.  Hence we could have both gotten what we wanted, had we spent time clarifying what each other wanted and expressing what exactly we wanted.

The exercise left a lasting impression on me.

Recently, I also encountered a similar situation at work.  There have been 4 policy groups set up in my organisation - 3 to assist operational departments in their policy work (I'm in one of them), and 1 central policy group to coordinate among the policy groups.  I know.  Sounds like a mess and a lot of additional layers for the poor operational departments.

Recently, the central policy group got CEO to approve a policy workflow which involved them sending up all policy submissions and items to CEO, on behalf of the departments.  What made it even more fishy was that they did not consult any operational department before presenting to CEO.  After it was approved, it was simply sent to us "for dissemination to departments".  My boss for the policy group had a fit.  He felt that this was clearly them trying to usurp power and take ownership of a lot of policy issues that were rightfully under the departments.  I sympathised with him and thought the head of the central policy group and her boss villains, and felt like fighting them tooth and nail to prevent this from happening.  I even came up with ideas in my sleep on how to jam this process and make life difficult for them :P

However, two things happened which helped me see the win-win in that.  First, I had cell group.  That night, we had a discussion on conflict resolution, and I asked how we could be "as shrewd as snakes, and as innocent as doves", especially in light of politics in the workplace, and I gave mine as an example.  My cell members gave their opinions on the matter and the person facilitating the session that night shared some verses on conflict resolution (e.g. strife results from having wrong motives, going the extra mile, being kind to our enemy), which were very relevant for me.  After meditating on those verses over the weekend, I realised a lot of my emotion stemmed from selfish ambition and the desire to get ahead, or rather the fear of not getting ahead.  I decided to let go of those motives and desires, and ask myself, "in light of all that Christ has done for me, and what lasts for eternity, what should I do?" and the answer was - these little things don't matter, and we should actually just work together for the common good.  That allowed me to go to work without all these negative emotions roiling in me.

Then the second thing happened - the head of the central policy group asked me out to lunch one day, and in a cool-headed frame of mind, we had a good talk where I shared (in a rationale, objective way) all my concerns about what this meant for operational departments, and she shared a lot more about the rationale for this, and how this would actually benefit the departments (by alleviating a lot of writing burden from them, so they can focus on actual operations).  She assured me they would still be involved in the policy crafting process (so it wasn't that they didn't need to think anymore), and the proper credits would be given.  In fact, if they were more familiar with the issue, they could even present to CEO.   After talking it out, I realised this actually wasn't a bad proposition for us.  So I took it back and we convinced my boss it was ok.  We will brief the departments next.

In my life, I am always looking for win-win.  There have been times when it has not been possible, so we go for compromise (e.g. choice of movies), or we intentionally give in one time, with the understanding the other person will give in next time (e.g. my husband and I taking turns to have our "alone time" every once in a while, while the other watches the kids).  Perhaps for these, we just haven't thought hard enough, but I guess we should reserve our energies and mental power to find win-win solutions for the big things first, cos as I said, it requires a lot of honest, open communication and some creativity :)