New Ways of Winning
Naming the transcompetitive habits
Excerpted from Transcompetition, by Harvey Robbins & Michael Finley, McGraw-Hill/Business Week Books, 1998
(c) by Harvey Robbins & Michael Finley
In the graph on page 38 we showed four dysfunctional ways of winning. The gray center square, what we're calling the Transcompetitive Zone, hid four ways that have greater long-term chances of success.
| - + |
Competition Collaboration |
Predation |
The Transcompetitive Zone
|
Martyrdom |
| Just WIN WIN Against STANDARDS WIN/WIN WIN/WIN or No Deal |
These are the four new ways of winning:
- Just Win. This will be tough for sensitive people to hear, but there is nothing wrong with winning. Innocent compared to its brutal brothers, the Just Win position simply wants to come out on top of the competitions it enters; it has no interest in the outcome of others in the competition. It is the standard motive in professional sports, where wins translate to bonuses and championships, and it is the minimum expectation of most business owners and workers: "I just want to come out ahead."
- Win Against Standards. Winning against standards means competing against oneself, or against the standards others set -- but not against the individuals themselves. The Olympics are the great example of this: When Janet Evans won the gold medal in the 400 meter freestyle swim in Atlanta, she was beating her own time and the times of other swimmers, both there in person and in the record books. Winning against standards is a very beautiful form of competing. It is about singleness of purpose, about achieving human perfection, not about clubbing the other guy on the cranium. It is saying, This is what I can do to the whole world. This beauty is one reason we make sports competition a kind of unofficial religion.
- Win/Win. For years, a town in Oregon sponsored an annual Short Fat Man's Race, where the entrants help each other out along the way and stop at the "stop short" line, wait for everyone to catch up, then cross the finish line together, hand-in-hand. The point behind the race was that anyone could win, and that one party's winning did not preclude anyone else from winning. This insight became the core insight to Getting to Yes, the classic guide to negotiating based on mutual interests.
Managed intelligently, win/win results in a pattern any individual and company would kill for -- but of course shouldn't. This is a pattern for continuous winning, whereby one's victories last longer, even in uncertain times, because the people who used to be strictly competitors are no longer ganging up on you. Continuous Winning beats the Brute Cycle hands down.
There are probably more books about win/win on business bookshelves today than books on golf. And that is a problem. Win/win has been overinflated as a collaborative panacea. Find advantages for both sides, the theory goes, and all conflict will be eliminated, and we'll all be living and working in a paradise of teamwork and nonaggression. Easy!
But it is a pipe dream. Collaboration cannot make competition obsolete, not while real shortages of resources exist, and multiple businesses engage in head-to-head rivalry. And this is the case in a hundred businesses for every one that finds a noncompetitive monopoly niche for itself.
- Win/Win or No Deal. Win/win with a commitment, or militant transcompetition. This is a way of certifying that a win/win really is a win/win. Both sides have to agree that the decision is a win for them. Until they find a way both sides can win, nothing goes forward. This compact helps police the looseness of win/win. It's most useful when trust between two parties is incomplete. "You know your intentions are OK, but until you see with your own eyes that working together is to your advantage as well as ours, we are not going to pressure you to agree."
These new ways of winning are what you want to move the supercompetitive (and the occasional supercollaborative) individual and organization toward. This may sound clear, but it isn't easy, because you will be calling into question habits accumulated and rewarded by years of striving. These habits have become entrenched, unconscious, and irrational. Changing them means understanding a few things about nature, psychology, and change theory.
Did you tip your writer?
I enjoyed serving this essay up for you, and I did
it for free. If you'd like to contribute to this site, however,
to keep it up and humming, consider dropping a $1 tip in the "Honor
Box" here. Think of it as a voluntary subscription. Just click the CLICK TO
PAY image here. Thanks! - Mike
Total tips, year
to date: $203.00 - MANY THANKS!
Visit Amazon.com
