Go For the Win-Win
James Carter
Leadership & Culture ?? Field CTO @ Team Covalence ?? Developing cohesive and effective teams at scale
There are many important aspects to how you influence others, and plenty of techniques and tools to help, but perhaps the most fundamental two aspects are:
? Always go for a Win-Win outcome
? Ask for what you want
Long term there are no Win-Lose or Lose-Win outcomes; only Win-Win or Lose-Lose. No matter the power dynamic or the relationship (which if unbalanced can make a Win-Lose option feasible in the short term), in the long run this will trend towards a losing position for both parties unless future outcomes rectify it. The Prisoner’s Dilemma is a great thought experiment model that demonstrates this.
It involves two parties making a repeated decision where they can share the rewards if they both compromise, one takes a larger reward if they double cross the other, and both lose if they both try to double cross. For a simple game this gives rich insights into human behaviour and decision making, and the clear message is that for long term games the best outcomes involve forgiving double crosses and going for Win-Win.
The same goes for business, and this is why it never pays in the long term to influence towards an outcome that disadvantages the counterpart, and avoiding this also makes influencing far easier and much more effective. If you always strive for a balanced win-win - to provide them as much value as you receive - then influencing becomes much easier, authentic and progressive.?
In short, don’t be an arse. Respect the other person and their outcome as much as your own. You may not benefit as well as you could in the short term, but long term you will have stronger relationships, happy clients and partnerships. Never try to influence someone for your short term gain at their expense.
Simply making sure you do this makes it 10x easier to influence people. When we are developing influencing skills of senior executives and experts, they often cite that they are uncomfortable with influencing people, and see it as a negative behaviour. Ensuring you strive for Win-Win takes this out of the equation. You lose any internal conflict about using influencing techniques for self gain, and the position you are influencing from is always open, authentic, and you can be fully willing to negotiate to find a suitably balanced outcome.
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???What influencing challenges or situations are ongoing or coming up that you feel you might not be approaching from a pure Win-Win perspective?
???How can you play for a Win-Win in these situations?
This month’s article covered the Art of Influence more widely.?
More about asking for what you want next week.
This content by James Carter is licensed under CC BY 4.0
Chief People Officer at LIFE Education Trust (UK) "Human Centred Design where Everyone Flourishes"
6 个月Don’t be an arse is excellent advice especially as it does not involve becoming something else. All you have to do is stop what you are doing. My New Year’s resolution was not to be a jerk and I have found out that is harder to achieve than I thought!
Business Architect at NatWest Group
6 个月Favourite quote “In short, don’t be an arse.” Think that generally covers it ?? Definitely something an individual I was on a call with this week could learn from
Leadership Consultant, Executive Coach, Facilitator and Speaker
6 个月Love this, big fan of the prisoner’s dilemma as a thought tool. There’s a lot to be said, too, for taking time to make sure you KNOW what you want, so you can ask for it!