A Pyrric victory.....

In warfare, a Pyrrhic victory is a battlefield triumph that comes at so great a cost that it proves to be more ruinous for the victor than the vanquished. The term takes its name from the disastrous successes achieved by the Greek conqueror Pyrrhus of Epirus, but history is rife with examples of commanders who used up their troops and resources on a single encounter and paid dearly for it in the long term.

I was fortunate enough to once meet someone who encapsulated the maxim of a Pyrrhic victory. He practiced it every day with gusto. He could string lying along with the three key drivers of Pyrrhic victories: a massive ego, arrogance you couldn’t buy and envy.  So much envy he would rather see disaster in others, their failure, than embrace their experience - he would say “I am competitive hence why I am like this”, explaining away very poor behaviour.

I wonder if he would sit up at night and ponder why people didn’t like him. No – because he would wallow in the sea of Pyrrhus. So, what is the opposite to that? Do you mirror that, give legitimacy to his shortcomings as a leader and as a person and become a product of it, a disciple, mindlessly following along and thinking it’s okay? Or do you make a stand, think for yourself and say” NO! I stand for something more meaningful than that.”

If you want to avoid being named Pyrrhus II (the second) consider these apporaches. It is the antithesis of Pyrrhic and can be considered win-win in nature.

1. Before you get the Calvary charging in and waste all your resources, think of the long-term mutual gain instead of the short-time personal gain. This means considering a shared benefit. Forget about your own personal gain and concentrate on what will make both sides happy.

2. Before you start arraigning and being too tough at the negotiation table, set a trusting, cooperative tone for the meeting right from the commencement. The best results are built on a footing of trust and collective respect. Some ways to achieve this are to...

... state your wish to achieve common benefit.

... state your longing for a longstanding relationship.

... add the expression win-win into your terminology.

... show proof of your morality and inclination to serve.

3. Study. Know the responses to any question before asked. What I mean is don't enter a conciliation and know nothing about what the other party desires or thinks.

4. Focus on interests, not situations. Situations are what you want; interests are how you get them. When you move from the what to the why, you move from a potentially negative discussion of demands to a positive conversation of mutual needs.

5. Intensification of issues you negotiate. This is important that you recognise there are more opportunities of success together. You increase the chance for win-win outcomes by increasing the amount of matters you can resolve. Make it so both of you gain something of value.

6. Avoid ultimatums. The person I referred to before loved these. A take-it-or-leave-it attitude creates pressure and limits options. Don't paint yourself or the other person into a corner. That would make it a win-lose scenario.

7. Give to get. Show your inclination to give and take as long as the other party is willing to do the same.

8. Participate in creative problem solving. The problem you and the other party are trying to solve can be stated very simply: How can we reach the same place that maximises our individual benefits, minimises our individual losses and hey is it fair for both? Brainstorm all possible alternatives that achieve all three criteria. Choose the alternative both can live with.

9. Keep searching for ways to add value. Leave out no option to find ways to increase the value of what the other person wants... while keeping what you want.

10. Make concessions gradually and in increments. Small incremental moves are better than one sudden, large and drastic move during the course of the negotiations. Smaller compromises are less threatening and easier to obtain.

11. My personal favourite is this one. Document all agreements. Avoid any possibility of a misunderstanding that would create issues. That would create a lose-lose scenario, and you will have wasted each other's time.

My last word on Pyrrhus to close the loop out and reiterate the risks you run if you think this way - Pyrrhus fancied himself a latter day Alexander the Great, (ego and envy) and he’d hoped his invasions into Europe would give his empire a foothold in Italy. But while he’d routed the Romans at both Heraclea and Asculum, he had also lost more than 7,500 of his most elite fighters, including many officers. Pyrrhus had no way of replacing his casualties,(no plan b – arrogant) and his failure to deal the enemy a deathblow sent morale plummeting within his ranks. According to the ancient historian Plutarch, the warrior king was quoted as muttering, “If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined.” Following a setback at the Battle of Beneventum in 275 B.C., he reluctantly called off his campaign and sailed back to Greece.