Think Win Win

First let me say right out in front that this comes from Steven Covey's The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Which is an incredible book, that can really make a difference in people's lives.

The 4th Habit is what Covey calls Think Win Win. While all the habits are incredible, this is one I think about quite a bit. He says there are four possible outcomes to any conflict. Win Win. Win Lose. Lose Win and Lose Lose. Read this book. Seriously, its incredible. I won't try to explain it anymore. The point is, however, that Win Win is the best possible outcome for all involved.

Conflicts big and small happen all the time. Most people, it seems, are always fighting to secure a win for themselves with only that in mind. But with that attitude, it ensures that someone loses. These same people seem to spend most of their time complaining about both their recent losses as well as their narrow victories over people who tried to screw them.

An easy example I can think of is Driving. It seems many people look at driving as series of little conflicts. And the if you can win as many as possible you will somehow get to work sooner. When they see someone getting in front of them, the scream at them and then speed up to try to prevent this. What happens here is that one of the two people in this scenario will lose. Then that person will try even harder to win the next conflict. This eventually results in the roughly 45,000 automobile related fatalities every year.

People scoff at the "we can make the world a better place" theory. Mostly they think no one will try it, so they don't try. Also, people think it depends on making big sacrifices to let someone else win. But here, you can look at life from an everyone wins philosophy. Work to make that happen and guess what.....Everybody wins.

No one will buy this. I know they won't. If I tried to tell someone, they would basically ignore me because they would think I am telling them to let someone else win. Which means they lose. I don't understand why people see everything in life as somebody wins and somebody loses. Its really sad. This is one of the deepest and most pervasive problems in our society today. We can all succeed and we can all be successful. But no one will risk it.

The sneaky little secret is that you are SUPPOSED to want to win. Helping the other fella win along with you, just makes you a great person. Plus it helps you out down the road too.

What do I know though....Read the book.

-T