Win/win

A win/win scenario is where parties involved in an engagement each receive a positive result from the exchange. An example of a win/win scenario is a successful trade between two parties. Each party agrees to a particular price for the trade of a good or service resulting in both parties obtaining their desired objective. A win/lose scenario is a situation where a party has to lose for another to gain. An example would be a running race between two contestants as there can only be one first place. A lose/lose scenario is where both parties fail their desired objective. An example would be two children fighting over a toy resulting in the toy breaking and neither child claiming the toy.

Many years ago, while I was undergoing a developing team leaders’ (DTL) training course, one of the many exercises my fellow DTLs and I had to complete was a simple arm wrestling contest against a peer in the group. I was paired with Mr A. While I had the size and strength advantage, he had a life time of martial arts and hunting experience and he despised losing as much as I did.

The premise of the exercise was simple enough, when the timer began, each pair had 30 seconds to see who could win by forcing the back of their opponent’s hand to the table. The prize for defeating your opponent was a wish.

As I sat across from Mr A preparing myself for the encounter, he made clear that he wasn’t intimidated by my size and would break one of my fingers before surrendering to my strength. I looked over at the other DTLs who were all preparing for their own battles.

I thought there had to be more to this exercise than a simple arm wrestle so quickly reviewed what the director had said when stipulating the rules. I told Mr A that nowhere in the rules dictated that we couldn’t both win! Mr A looked at me bewilderingly so I said ‘it’s ok’ and surrendered the back of my hand to the table. Mr A watched as I then reset our locked hands to the starting position and asked if I could place the back of his hand on the table? He cautiously but trustingly agreed. We repeated this several times. The director asked us all to stop when the 30 seconds had elapsed. He then went around the room and asked each group who of the pair had managed to secure a wish? Most pairs had a result of zero or one. When the director asked Mr A and I how we fared, I proudly said we had six wishes each. The director asked how we came to this figure which was vastly different to everyone else in the room. I explained that the rules never stipulated that we couldn’t all win which is what my colleagues had missed during the brief instruction. I didn’t perform as well with some of the other exercises that day but the lesson did make me think that there may be more solutions than first thought of if we’re prepared to look outside the box. I eventually received all six wishes years later.

Think about some of your daily challenges and look for possible win/win outcomes. It’ll leave you and those you deal with in better circumstances.

PDR