The Winning Perspective

By John Counsel

Long-term success in life — and business — is determined by two things: your ability to control the relationship process, and your ability to find and maintain the accurate perspective in all circumstances.

The perspective that will put you in control of both — the winning perspective — is that Win-Win motives, attitudes and behaviour are the only option, in any situation.

We’ve seen the predictable, desirable results of this approach in the chapters dealing with relationships. We’ve also seen the predicable, undesirable results of Lose-Lose and Win-Lose — the counterfeits that are nothing more than Lose-Lose in disguise.

In this chapter we’re going to examine the process for identifying true Win-Win perspectives and how and why, even when we focus exclusively on the positive, desirable options, we can still be defeated by the counterfeits.

The Negotiation Matrix

The Negotiation Matrix is a simple, useful tool for evaluating your options in dealing with other people. It requires time, effort and discipline, of course, but it’s the safest way to ensure apredictable, desirable outcome.

The two left-hand quadrants represent your options. The two right-hand quadrants represent the other person’s options.

The two upper quadrants represent the desirable (or acceptable) options for both of you — Win-Win — while the two lower quadrants represent the undesirable (or unacceptable) options for you both — Lose-Lose.

Win-Win or Lose-Lose… that’s all there is!

There are only two realities when it comes to relationships and negotiation: Win-Win or Lose-Lose. You both have to be on the same level. It’s impossible to do otherwise.

That doesn’t stop people fooling themselves that Win-Lose is an option. But the inescapable fact is that there’s no way to achieve an imbalance and still maintain the relationship and the results that come from that relationship — except temporarily.

Once the loser realises the truth, they invariably terminate the relationship and the results cease to flow. It now reverts to what it always was… Lose-Lose posing as a win to fool both of you. The only difference is that the fancy name and packaging are gone.

The reason why this suicidal tendency is so prevalent in our society is not hard to find: our entire culture is founded on the self-defeating concept of Win-Lose!

Any form of competition is Win-Lose by definition. There can be only one winner. Everyone else is a loser. In sport, in school, in business… competition is everywhere. It begins even before we start school, with sibling rivalry. Is it any wonder, then, that adult life is so thoroughly Win-Lose in its motives, attitudes and behaviour?

Yet Win-Win co-operation has been proven conclusively to produce bigger, better, faster results than Win-Lose competition in virtually every field of human endeavour.

So why do we persist?

Because Win-Lose is the classic Barker’s Egg. Remember, the undesirable realities in life never present themselves in their true identity, because they know we won’t choose them. So they disguise themselves as something desirable, always. And always as a “quick fix”… a false vision requiring no time, no effort and no self-discipline.

By the way, if you’re trying to rationalise the time, energy and resources invested in competition in sport and business, think again. It’s selfishness that drives anyone to become a peak performance athlete or business achiever in any kind of competitive environment. And selfishness is the very essence of Win-Lose. This is reflected in the classic response of the “winner”. . . that it’s lonely at the top! Despite all the adulation, they find themselves denied the kind of relationships they desire. Even when surrounded by admirers, they can never be sure of the real motives of those “friends”.

The truth is, co-operative, Win-Win relationships demand a substantial investment in time, effort and resources to make them productive. But only in the short term, because it’s the ultimate application of the Bow and Arrow Principle.

Once those relationships are up and running, the Rocket Principle takes over.

But lose sight of the Winning Perspective, and it soon falls apart. So let’s look closely at how and why we lose the plot and, more often than not, turn Win-Win into Lose-Lose without realising, especially in established relationships.

The root cause, every time we’re fooled into choosing Win-Lose because we think it’s easier than disciplining ourselves to invest in Win-Win (think about that), is loss of the correct perspective. “Losing the plot” sums it up accurately. We lose sight of the truth and succumb to the lie (usually a “little white lie” or “half truth”). In any case, a lie is just a counterfeit of truth. It’s untrue. (Isn’t it interesting how many expressions for the counterfeits we have in our everyday speech?)

How it works

When preparing for any form of negotiation, we list our options in order of priority, from most desirable to most undesirable. In the illustration below, the desirable options are represented by ticks, the undesirable by crosses. The most desirable option is represented by five ticks, the next by four and so on.

A counterfeit “Win-Win” that’s really “Win-Lose,” even though you both appear to Win. The other person will eventually become disillusioned and see themselves as the loser. Equity and parity are missing.

It’s very rare for both parties to achieve their most desirable preferences. They tend to be mutually exclusive. For example, when buying a new car, your own most desirable option would be to pay nothing for the car, while the seller’s most desirable outcome would be for you to pay for the car… and not take it.

So what happens, in order to achieve a result that’s equitable for both parties, is what we know as the negotiation process. We move gradually down the list until we find a position where both parties are satisfied that they’re not the loser.

Just because both parties receive an outcome that’s desirable does not necessarily make it a true Win-Win result. Unless there is genuine equity and parity, one party will eventually come to regard themselves as the comparative loser.

That’s the trouble, of course. It’s always a matter of perception and relativity.

So the counterfeits strike again, and we lose the result we thought we’d achieved.

Win-Win equity and parity are vital because they protect and enhance the relationship, ensuring future results for both parties. Win-Win is the only outcome with integrity, because it does the right thing for the right reason. It has both quantity and quality. It achieves true balance. (See “Danger. . . Sloppy Definitions!”)

So it’s not enough to simply ensure that the outcome for each party lies in the “desirable” quadrant. We have to be absolutely certain that there’s no imbalance.

But even when we’ve achieved this fine balance and have a genuinely Win-Win result, the danger’s not yet over. There’s still a strong likelihood that we’ll end up losing the benefits because of distorted perspective, for the reason we discussed in “Danger. . . Sloppy Definitions!”.

Foiled again — by sloppy definitions!

Just imagine. . . you’ve invested time, effort and discipline to negotiate a true Win-Win result. Because it has genuine balance, with parity and equity for both parties, it’s the only outcome with real integrity. It protects and enhances the relationship. It should engender trust, freedom, creativity, success and positive fulfilment.

That’s the theory, anyway. Too often, in real life, we see such carefully negotiated results end up as Lose-Lose over time, producing bitterness and broken relationships.

It seems impossible, yet it happens all the time. Why?

In “What This Book Is Really About” and “Danger. . . Sloppy Definitions!”, we learned that we can never control anything until we can first define it (as distinct from merely describing it). We also discovered that almost all problems in human relations stem from our inability to define. “The Supposition Principle” explains how misunderstanding is often due to inadequate definitions or inaccurate interpretation of the words and expressions we use.

Win-Win negotiation is no different.

When we negotiate any kind of Win-Win deal as the basis of a relationship, we normally refer to the process of finding that true balance as “compromise”. We even call the outcome “a compromise”, hailing the result as a triumph of common sense and goodwill over competing self-interests.

Now… can you see how the wheels just came off the track? And why?

On a continuum of human performance, when integrity is the top of the continuum, compromise lies at the bottom. Compromise is definable as “the absence of integrity”.

I am convinced that there is no other valid use of the word. If we use the word “compromise” to mean anything but “absence of integrity”, we’re mistaken.

Because what we really mean in those other situations is “BALANCE”.

Think about it for a moment.

I once rejected a car a salesman was trying to sell me because he claimed that its engine was “a masterpiece of engineering compromise”.

He persisted, assuring me that it did not pursue one technological direction at the expense of all the others. It was a genuine masterpiece of engineering compromise that only this manufacturer seemed capable of producing.

I replied that I would not put my trust in any piece of machinery that lacked integrity, because it would break down as a direct result, sooner or later.

He was utterly perplexed, until I explained that what he really meant was that the motor was a masterpiece of engineering balance. It was revealing to watch this perspective dawn on him.

The trap, in a nutshell, is this:

Earlier, I pointed out that the real danger lay in the fact that Win-Win could be so easily undermined by perception and relativity. By choosing the word “compromise” to refer to the only result with true integrity — the exact opposite of compromise — we set up the perception that we had sacrificed our real desired outcome just to keep the other person happy.

Even in this true Win-Win agreement, the plot can still be lost, turning the only balanced outcome from Win-Win to Lose-Lose because we mistakenly call it a “compromise” 

That simple action — mistakenly using the word compromise instead of balance — can cause us to eventually regard ourselves as the losers in this relationship. As time passes, this warped perspective can create such intense dissatisfaction that we finally decide to put an end to it and terminate the deal… and the relationship.

Even in this true Win-Win agreement, the plot can still be lost, turning the only balanced outcome from Win-Win to Lose-Lose because we mistakenly call it a “compromise”. Sloppy definitions distort our perspective and rob us of success.

What really happened here?

By using the word “compromise” instead of “balance”, we robbed the only outcome with integrity of its meaning — and focussed our attention firmly on the result we didn’t achieve in our priorities. The fact that such a result could never be Win-Win becomes irrelevant in our twisted perspective, and we gradually devalue the relationship until it no longer has any perceived value to us at all.

Perception is influenced directly by the perspective we adopt. This has a direct impact on the relative values we assign to the issues or items under consideration. Nothing else has changed except our view of the facts. (For a more detailed insight, read this chapter.) 

The counterfeits — the Barker’s Eggs — are everywhere out there, like the proverbial “wolf in sheep’s clothing”, lying in wait to sabotage us at every turn. They rob and cheat us of our rightful results by sabotaging our relationships — the true causes of all results in life.

Disciplining ourselves to always look for true Win-Win perspectives is the only way to beat them at their own game, because it’s the only perspective that puts the relationship ahead of the result in our priorities — the right thing to do, for the right reason, every time.

Choose your words carefully.

Communicate your precise meaning clearly.

Give equal time and effort to not being misunderstood.

Avoid selfish, Win-Lose counterfeit perspectives.

And don’t lose the plot.

Download this safe, printable PDF file: Negotiation Matrix

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There are FOUR lessons in this tutorial. Please study and apply them in the correct order.

Intro | Lesson 1 | Lesson 2 | Lesson 3 | Lesson 4

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