Think Win-Win

Another interesting excerpt from The 8th Habit:

I came across another commonly misaligned system while speaking to a group of about eight hundred at their annual convention. In their system, only thirty of the eight hundred received rewards - thirty of eight hundred! I turned to the president and said, "Didn't you hire all of these people to be winners?"

"Yes."

"Did you hire any losers?"

"No."

"You have seven hundred seventy losers tonight."

"Well, they didn't win the contest."

"They are losers."

"Why?"

"Because of the way you are thinking? It's win-lose."

"What else could you do?"

"Make them all winners. Where did you get the concept that you have to have contests? Don't you have enough competition in the marketplace?"

"Well, that's the way life is."

"Really. How's your relationship with your wife? Who is winning?"

"Some days she wins. Some days I win."

I said, "Is that the kind of modelling you want to give to your kids for their futures? Come on."

He said, " How do I do it with compensation?"

I said, "Set up an individualized win-win performance agreement with every person and every team. If they accomplish the desired results, they win."

This is so true. Even in our lives, we tend to choose man among boys. But this doesn't only discourage those "boys", we cannot gain the maximum benefit. I think perhaps we should not be kiasu, but try to think win-win and exploit the bestest result from it.