Think Win-Win

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, by Dr. Stephen R. Covey, is a masterpiece.

Applying the principles of his work has the potential to profoundly improve the quality of your life.

Do you have any room for improvement?

I certainly do.

That is embarrassingly obvious.

I am very good at ignoring my inadequacies, deficiencies, and flaws.

Are you?

It is much less painful to place my attention on other people’s problems.

Unfortunately for me, this becomes an extremely slippery slope, and creates opportunity for hypocrisy.

Let me ask you, are you getting better or bitter?

Think about it.

How are you really doing?

Are you awake, aware, alert, fully alive, and ready to seize the day?

If not, I would like to make a suggestion, so I am going to.

If you are feeling helpless, help someone else.

If you are feeling hopeless, give hope to someone else.

If you are feeling useless, acknowledge someone else’s usefulness.

If you are feeling worthless, give recognition to someone else for their worthiness.

Impossible?

Not at all.

Difficult?

A little.

Valuable?

Immeasurably!

You aren’t really helpless, hopeless, useless, or worthless.

I guarantee it.

But if all of your life is a function of comparison and cut-throat competition, you are setting yourself up for an adversarial existence.

Blue Belt…

The 4th Habit - Think Win-Win, is a terrific concept.

As with all of the 7 habits, it is a practice.

It essentially suggests that we have many opportunities for mutual gain, but they often go unrecognized or under leveraged.

Thinking and applying a win-win mentality encourages cooperation and collaboration.

This does not negate the value of competition.

In fact, Habit 4 encourages it.

Competition, done correctly, brings out the best in everyone, which results in Win-Win.

We should seek Win-Win opportunities when the approach enhances the outcome.

Sometimes the Win-Lose approach is appropriate, and should be applied accordingly.

For example, you definitely want to go for Win-Lose in competitive sports.

Yet, within the development of your own team, Win-Win is a superior approach.

You and every one of your teammates benefit, if you think Win-Win.

Teamwork requires cooperation.

A great example of where Win-Lose does not work well is in a friendship.

Win-Win is the appropriate paradigm of friendship.

If a friendship has a winner and a loser, it isn’t really very friendly, is it?

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In the Dojo, we mature through a continuum of dependence to independence, and finally to interdependence.

The same is true outside of the Dojo.

If it isn’t, we will experience a life loaded with conflict, controversy, and contentiousness.

To succeed in the Dojo, a fundamental understanding and application of Habit 4, Think Win-Win is a necessity.

In our training continuum, the value of cooperative effort is heavily emphasized at the Blue Belt level.

Students who do not work well with others have an inordinately frustrating experience with this.

Therefore, they stand to gain immeasurably from this part of their practice.

The core opportunity and responsibility of Blue Belt level practitioners is to embrace the influence, example, cooperation, and collaboration of every member of the Dojo.

This comes as a shock to those of us who have been scripted in the ridiculousness of “kill or be killed.”

Interestingly, the hyper competitive mindset is disproportionately abundant amongst those who live in a world of virtual reality and video games.

Waxing enthusiastic as a stone cold killer, while navigating your way through the “valley of the shadow of death” on a 2 dimensional screen, can lead to a life of delusion.

In the Dojo, our classmates are not our competition.

Our classmates are our most valuable resource, and form the relationships of highest leverage in the Dojo.

If we are to successfully progress along the endless path of self-improvement that Martial Arts training offers, we must learn to lead and follow.

Idealistic?

Not at all.

It is practical, powerful, and principle centered.

It is also difficult.

You have certainly experienced the dysfunction and destruction which results from resistance to a win-win paradigm in situations which require it, haven’t you?

Everyone has.

In the Martial Arts, it is most obvious at two stages of development.

First, at the beginning of a student’s journey, when a practitioner may own too little of themselves, and therefore believe that they have nothing to give away.

This is tolerable, and somewhat expected.

Second, after earning the rank of Black Belt, and acknowledging that our skill and knowledge naturally suffer the ravages of entropy.

In a fearful and cowardly attempt to remain “relevant”, practitioners sometimes sabotage the progress of their classmates.

This can quickly damage, if not destroy, a Dojo.

It is a culture crushing behavior, which everyone resents.

Can you even begin to imagine someone scratching and clawing to hold on to a position of profound responsibility, well beyond their ability to function effectively?

Perhaps you don’t have to imagine.

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Lose-Win is a faulty model of interaction.

It encourages destructive sacrifice, masochistic behavior, and pseudo-martyrdom.

As we all know, masochism rapidly transforms into sadism.

The outer end of either of those extremes gives birth to the other.

It is a vicious cycle.

Lose-Lose, of course, is the worst of all.

It may be semantics, but I personally prefer the word “earn” rather than win.

“Win” suggests an outcome arrived at by chance.

“Earn” implies a result that comes through choice and perseverance.

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Many of us are conditioned to see every interaction as a win or lose conflict.

Have you ever tried going for Win-Lose when Win-Win would have been more effective?

Of course you have.

We all have.

Many of us are trapped in this mindset.

Carefully examine which approach you are primarily using in your life.

Are you truly cooperating and seeking mutual benefit for yourself and others when it is appropriate?

Or do you constantly see everything as a contest where if someone else wins, you automatically lose?

In my experience, successful people are constantly increasing their capacity to apply a Win-Win paradigm to as many areas of their lives as possible.

Spectators of amateur Wrestling often believe they are watching an individual sport.

Wrestlers know better.

They participate in a team sport.

Wrestlers cannot cultivate their craft without their teammates.

Their training, which makes up 95% of the time invested in their sport, is overwhelmingly cooperative.

When the whistle blows, sparks fly, and Win-Lose is on the table.

Their competitive effectiveness is a direct consequence of their ability to cooperate with their training partners.

The win or learn perspective is another way of saying Win-Win.

Ultimately, Win-Learn is a version of Win-Win.

“Losers” always seem to have a hard time understanding that.

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When you genuinely apply Win-Win to your life, defaulting to Win-Lose is easy, and always available when necessary.

Do not delude yourself into thinking that Win-Win is easy.

Win-Win is extremely challenging and extraordinarily rewarding.

Take a closer look at your approach to your relationships and your interaction with your friends, family, classmates and colleagues.

Who’s winning?

What are you going for?

What are they going for?

Investigate your motives and methods.

You may be surprised.

Hopefully you will be delighted.

Next time, we will take a careful look at Habit 5 - Seek First To Understand, Then To Be Understood, which corresponds with the rank of Red Belt in our Dojo.