Today
is Day Four of Week Seven of the Omer. That is Forty-six Days of the
Omer. The Theme is: Seven
Principles
The first three of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, which
I presented to you over the last three days, are intended to help you achieve
independence. We can overcome the
negative habits that we’ve built up over a lifetime, and replace them with the
positive habits Be Proactive, Begin with the End in Mind, and Put
First things First. If we can adopt
these three habits, we can begin to take control of our lives and feel far less
as if we’re caught in a relentlessly-rushing stream of helplessness from which
we cannot extract ourselves.
Starting tonight, I’d like to
present Habits four through six, which are geared toward developing interdependence. Very few are the endeavours in life that
one can enter into and accomplish without working successfully with others. We are social animals, and we need to have
others in our lives. It is fine – and actually,
quite healthy for most of us – to seek solitude from time to time. I’m an introvert, and people of this
personality type need solitude to recharge after they’ve been drained by
being around others. But to creat a life
where one is absolutely independent is not good or healthy.
Tonight’s Habit is: Think win-win. When trying to settle on a course of
action that involves others, it is normal that different members of the group
find themselves being pulled in different directions. There are sometimes situations where the
various choices are mutually exclusive.
But in most situations, it is possible to find a way where the various
parties get satisfaction. The mindset of
trying to find such solutions, is called win-win.
There is a mindset that in every
disagreement one side must win and the other must lose. This is a result of a mindset that is called ‘zero-sum
thinking.’ It is a common pitfall. In most cases, a mindset of Win-win will
find a way that all parties can get at least part of what they seek. And if the effort is made, they can realise
the most important elements.
Zero-sum thinking says that
everything I gain, is at someone else’s expense. In other words, in any situation there are a
fixed amount of resources – whether money, time, human capital, whatever – and the
pie that can be sliced between competing interests is of a fixed size.
An example of Zero-sum thinking is
in economics. Say I succeed wildly in
business and make a lot of money. There’s
nobody who should think that I’ve made my money at their expense. There is not a constant supply of money in
the economy; it is fluid and increases as people produce goods and services
that others wish to purchase. So, expect
perhaps for those producing and selling a product that directly competes with mine,
nobody should think that I, in making a large amount of money, have prevented
someone else from doing so. Usually the
opposite is true: when one person makes
money, he spends it on other peoples’ good and services and creates wealth to
build a demand for things in the marketplace.
But there are many people who have a Zero-sum mindset; if I earn a
million dollars (halvai!), they think that’s a million less for other people to
earn. But economics simply doesn’t work
like that.
People adopt Zero-sum thinking to
just about every area of life. Think
Win-win is its antithesis. Think
Win-win is a mindset that starts on the assumption that there are enough
resources to fulfil everybody’s needs.
The challenge is, within the framework of a group and its efforts, to
find a way to make it so.
Think Win-win says that there is enough for everybody, we just need to have a
broad enough vision to find a way to achieve enough as a group to satisfy
everyone. Think Win-win is a patently
optimistic way of looking at life. It
starts from a assumption that satisfying everyone is desirable, and possible. The person who Thinks Win-win will
never be a ‘cheapskate’; he will always be generous with others, because he
knows that whatever he has, he can always get more. It’s just a matter of finding the way.
There are limits times when Zero-sum is a reality. For example, in an election for a specific office: several candidates are running, but only one wins. On the other hand, the winner might coopt the talents of his opponent(s) by offering a position in his administration. It is a common consequence. Look, the loser didn't get the office they sought but they didn't necessarily have to be vanquished from public life.
In this sesne, even competitions that are superficially Zero-sum can be turned into Win-win situations. As I said, it's all in the mindset.
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