Win-Win - the need for courage and consideration (Thank you Stephen Covey)

One of the cooler things that I got to do was to work for Covey Leadership Center for a few years. I still feel really fortunate that I got to teach the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People seminar multiple times. (Quick people need to take it only once to get it. Those of us who are slower had to teach it multiple times.)

Habit 4 is Think Win-Win. Lots to it but one really powerful framing is in terms of the need for both courage and consideration.

If you are only considerate, inquiring about and respecting the other person's win without fighting for your own win, you will end up in lose-win relationships. They win, you don't.

If you are only courageous, articulating and defending your own win without regard for theirs, you will end up in win-lose or win relationships. You win, they don't.

There is too little time and too many people to put up with those relationships. I still find myself forgetting courage or consideration and need to pause to make things right.

Be considerate and insist that the folks in your life do the same. Or, if you'd rather, be courageous and insist that the folks in your life do the same. Either way it's a win-win.

Be a winner who surrounds yourself with winners.

Couples in Quarantine

She: "I'm going out for a few hours."

He, worried. "Please be safe."
She: "Don't worry. I have protection."
He: "Great."
The door closes. Suddenly it dawns on him that this could mean a couple of things. He does start to worry.

*****

"Please," she raised her hand. "Just ... please. I've had enough of people today."
"Had enough ..." he sputtered. "But I'm the only one here!"
"Exactly," she sighed.

*****

She, sounded exasperated: "We should start seeing other people."
He, alarmed: "What?!?!? You want an open marriage?"
She, disgusted: "What? No! I just literally mean that we should see other people. After 6 weeks I am so ready to spend the evening with someone - anyone - else."

***********

He was outraged. "He's recommending doctors experiment with disinfectant as a way to cleanse the body from this virus?"
"You can't really blame Trump for his confusion about medicine," she said.
"What?!?! He's an idiot."
"Well medicine is confusing for him," she calmly said. "He's had really confusing personal experiences with medicines. For instance, the only time he took Viagra, the only thing that happened was that he was a couple of inches taller for a little while."

***********

He had just stepped in the door and before he could take off his mask, she stopped him. "Leave your mask on," she instructed him as she grabbed his hand. "Speak to me in a French accent," she said as she led him into the bedroom. He mumbled something largely unintelligible in what might have been a French accent and her only response was to pull him closer.
By the end of quarantine, he was regularly uttering largely unintelligible nonsense in various accents, uncertain whether he should be hurt or flattered when she told him that she'd never so enjoyed their conversations.

***********

The first day they re-opened the beach, he saw something remarkable. She was wearing matching bikini and face mask. He couldn’t help but notice that the black material for each breast was the same size, shape, texture and color as her mask. He wondered if in the post-pandemic world women who had a boyfriend or husband would convert the his and her masks into a bikini top and the single women would simply convert their one mask into a monokini. A post-pandemic signal that one was single. Then he thought again. "Probably not what they meant when they said that things will never again return to normal."

***********

He, after a day of silence. "I can't take this anymore."
She: "I know. This quarantine is going on too long."
He: "No. I can't take being with you another week. We need to swap partners. Even if just for a week."
He braces himself, ready for tears, anger, accusations ... instead she calmly says, "Carl."
He: "What?"
She: "I've thought about it too. I would rather be with Carl."
He's offended, angry, confused .... but stands there mute. She goes back to reading. He wanders out of the room.
Neither of them speak of it again.

The Illusion of Understanding

There seems to be this notion in matters of diplomacy and relationships that if only two parties understood each other, peace would ensue. The apparent assumption is that engaging in real dialogue with better communication will result in a healthier, stronger relationship.

That, it seems to me, presumes that the two parties really will respect what they come to understand. If the husband likes spending money on every new gadget and could care less about saving, his wife likely won't feel more loving once she better understands this about him. If the Palestinians really do think that you as a people should not exist, better communication will do little to bring peace.

The tough nut always seems to be the same. Without a context of compassion and acceptance, understanding does little to repair a relationship. And while you may easily accept the very different philosophy of someone across town or in another country, it is tougher to accept that your neighbor or lover has a different view of the world than you do. Better communication that lets you understand such differences might just alarm you. If you don't have compassion enough to be ready to accept whoever they are, you aren't ready for real communication. And they probably won't give it to you.

And Sometimes the Butterflies' Wings Carry it Over to Pollinate the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil

I got introduced to systems thinking by the management guru W. Edwards Deming. He made the point that when assessing a team made up of three people, it is easy to think that we’ll know how the group would perform simply by looking at the performance of each individual. The team performance of Tom, Carmen, and Jin could look like this:

Tom’s performance [T] + Carmen’s performance [C] + Jin’s performance [J] = team performance [x]

In fact, that might well be the least of the equation. The team’s performance is also a function of

Tom’s working relationship with Carmen [T~C] + Carmen’s working relationship with Jin [C~J] + Jin’s working relationship with Tom [J~T] + the dynamic that emerges between all three [T~C~J]

An equation that at first blush looks like:

T + C + J = x

Is actually

T + C + J + [T~C] + [C~J] + [J~T] + [T~C~J] = x

This is not a problem of simple addition. This is a problem of relationships and emergent phenomenon. Jin could be a great guy but cause the other two team members to perform poorly. Carmen may be a poor performer on her own but might make the team perform better. The symbol ~ sometimes adds and sometimes multiplies as team members bring out what is better in each other; it sometimes subtracts and sometimes divides as they, at other times, undermine each other or leave each other feeling like less. What emerges out of relationship is not simple and cannot be reduced to the parts. Systems are defined by emergent properties, not just their parts.

“In an avalanche, each snowflake pleads its innocence.”

-         - Proverb

And of course, the world in which we live is defined by system dynamics, by the interaction of systems and even the performance of systems within systems. Cultures and societies are not the product of just one person, they emerge out of a dynamic between people and their times and circumstances. Your work place, your town, your portfolio, your marriage… these are defined by not just by emergent properties but how they, as systems, fit within the larger system we call the environment. Like Russian dolls, our world is not only composed of systems but has layers of systems. Your respiratory system can perform in ways that allow you to run a marathon or be unable to rise out of bed; if you are king, this difference can ripple across a kingdom to shatter a fragile peace. 

Sometimes the butterfly stirs up a storm and sometimes it gets pinned inertly into the collection. It’s hard to predict which it will do by just looking at the butterfly. 

There's Always Another Man

"I think that there is another man."
He laughed. "There's always another man."
"Not always."
"Always," he asserted.
"That's a ridiculous claim. There is not always another man."
"You think that you are not competing with some other man from the first conversation? The other man is the man she's somehow constructed in her mind. At any moment, he can alienate her affections from you. He's perfect. You're not. You, however, have one advantage over him: she can introduce you to her friends. As long as you affirm her desirability and don't embarrass her in front of her friends, he's the 'other' guy rather than 'the' guy."
"So, there's always another man."
"That's what I said."

Maddie on Men

"There are two kinds of men," Maddie finally offered. Maddie's older brother Bernard and I had been talking about women and relationships and she had been quietly listening. Finally, inevitably, Bernard and I stopped to catch our breath and she was able to talk without interrupting.

"Two?"

"Yes," she nodded. "Men who don't have a clue about women and men who don't have a clue that they don't have a clue about women."

I wanted to respond. I was not sure what to say.

Bernard's confusion did less to silence him. "Oh c'mon, Maddie. That's a cheap shot. There are men who have a clue."

"Really," she raised an eyebrow.

"Sure. There are women happy with the guy they are with. They even say as much."

"They are with men who don't have a clue that they don't have a clue." The way she said this did not seem to allow the least questioning on our part. "Those men are sometimes easier to be with." She paused. "Sometimes."

"What do you mean?"

"Well," she paused, her finger tracing patterns in some spilt salt on the table, "men who don't have a clue tend to give up. They are like deer in the headlights. Or potatoes on the couch. They don't try anymore because they haven't a clue about what does or doesn't work or what to say or what not to say. Men who realize how little they realize might be less delusional, but they are not really better.
"Now men who haven't a clue that they don't have a clue can actually be coaxed into doing certain things. They are easier to engage. They say the wrong things but they can be coached into saying some approximation of the right thing. They do the wrong things but ... well at least they still engage with you. Handled properly, they can be enjoyable company."

Bernard and I sat quietly for the first time all evening. I had suddenly lost all confidence about what I could say.

"Is knowing that there are just these two types of men the first clue," I finally asked.

Maddie laughed. "Oh Ron," she said. "You know, there might be hope for you yet."

"You think there is hope for me to actually get a clue," I asked, my voice betraying my hope more than I had wanted.

Maddie laughed even harder. "No, silly. I'm just saying that there is a chance that you might be one of those men whose sense of delusion could be put to good use." And then she laughed again. I did not.

Maddie Explains Systems Thinking. And Women

I’d been traveling a lot and it’d been too long since I’d lunched with Bernard and Maddie. Maddie came to our table with a hat – a small, foppish affair that coerced a dopey grin from me. Of course, with the political sensibility of a place setting and a casual kind of emotional awareness, she was the closest thing I knew to an autistic savant and an odd foil to Bernard who had seemed to reverse this equation, as if these aged siblings were the ying and yang of emotional and social intelligence. Or maybe it was just my judgment that was skewed. In any case, I had missed our conversations. I had missed them.

Bernard was fretting about his granddaughter. “She doesn’t seem capable of just deciding who she wants to be outside of a relationship,” he said. “I worry about her. It’s almost like everything is up for grabs – from career to belief system – until she finds the right guy.”

“I know what you mean,” I chimed in. “How does she even know who the right guy is until she knows who she wants to be?”

Maddie cocked her head. “You boys have no clue, do you?”

“What?” I was baffled twice. Once that she’d actually called us boys and again with her accusation of cluelessness.

“I’ve been reading that stuff about systems thinking you suggested I read, Ron.”

“You have?”

“Yes. You suggested it but you don’t really understand it, do you?” She looked at me innocently but it felt like a strong accusation.

“Well, I would hope that I do,” I said hesitantly, unsure where she was going with this.

“Those systems thinkers use lots of fancy language, but isn’t the real message behind systems thinking that you cannot understand parts until you understand what they’re a part of?”

“Yeah,” I grudgingly acknowledged. “I guess that’s it, although that seems a little simple.”

“Or you can say that context is everything, right? If you don’t know the context, you don’t know the thing.”

“So what does this have to do with Emma?” Bernard inquired, insulted that Maddie would so quickly turn the conversation from his granddaughter.

“Well, guys don’t seem to take naturally to systems thinking. But I think that it is ingrained in us women. We know things intuitively that you simply don’t and we don’t need fancy language and models to know this.”

“Such as?” Bernard asked.

“Well, you are saying that your granddaughter should define her life without regard to her most important relationship,” she looked at Bernard and then turned to me. “And relationships are the whole point of systems thinking, right?”

“Yes,” I said, wondering how she had managed to so quickly get past the verbiage of systems thinking to its essence so quickly.

“Well, your granddaughter is much smarter than you, as women are, and that’s why men dominate in culture. It’s not just their brute strength that makes this a man’s world. Men make the choices and women, who understand that without relationships the world would fall apart, accommodate. They do this not because they are weaker. They do this because they are smarter. Of course your granddaughter is trying to figure out relationships first. If everyone acted like a marble in a pinball machine, the world would fall apart. The fact that you men are unaware of this doesn’t make you better – it just means that we women have to make adjustments that you won’t, that you are not even aware need to be made. “

I was more than impressed by Maddie’s uncharacteristically long speech. “So you are saying that women are naturally, intuitively, more aware of relationships? They’re the systems thinkers?”

“Well isn’t it obvious?”

“And because of this, a young woman starts with relationships and then fills in the parts, whereas men start with the part and then work to the relationship?”

“Yes.”

“Wait!” Bernard actually hollered. “Wait,” he said more softly, self-conscious about his outburst. “You are saying that a life is just a part? A life is a whole. It’s huge. And you are saying that a life is just a part?”

“It kind of makes sense, Bernard,” I agreed. “We get created by our culture, by our society, by our families. In that sense, a life is just a part.”

“But you can rise above that. Progress – even psychological health – depends on you being defined by something more. It is a terrible thought, that we’re determined by these things, these relationships that we just wake up in.”

“You don’t have to be so extreme,” Maddie said. “Women choose how they adapt to relationships, even what relationships to adapt to. But they start with relationships.”

“Well what about you,” Bernard queried. “You start with relationships?”

Maddie beamed. “No,” she said. “Not any more. Now I’m free. I know what it’s like to be a man. And it makes life so simple.”

“What?”

“My kids are grown up. My husband is gone. I don’t have to start with relationships anymore. I have so few variables to consider that I feel like my IQ has gone up by 30 points. Life is so simple now. I see now why you men seem to get so much done even when you spend so much time on the couch apparently doing nothing.”

“Ouch,” I said.

“Systems thinking is exhausting,” Maddie said. “It wore me out for 60-some years. Having to consider relationships and other people before I could figure what to do next. I’m so glad to be done with that. Now I even have enough intellectual energy left over to read books on systems thinking.” She reached over and patted Bernard’s hand. “Don’t worry about your Emma,” she said. “She’ll think like you do. Eventually.” And then Maddie got a faraway look in her eyes. “The real pity is that you men don’t know what this is like – what It’s like to think both ways. Just think what you could do if you did.”

I would have taken offense but Maddie’s foppish hat and smile completely disarmed me. I could, stupidly, only smile back and nod. “Too bad, indeed,” I agreed. “It’s like we’re missing a whole life.”

“That’s what you have us for,” she squeezed my hand. “We’re the life you’re missing.”

I could not contain myself. I leaned in and planted a kiss on her head, stylish hat and all.

Bernard on Where Life Is

Bernard sighed.

“How is it going, Bernard?”

“I’ve been spending too much time alone,” he said.

“That’s not all bad, is it?” I asked, trying to point to the positive.

“Ha!” he said. “You and the tiresome optimism.”

“Well, alone can be restful,” I said.

“Left alone we’re animals,” Bernard muttered. “Our brains are too big for us to live alone, big enough that they become just an annoyance. When we’re made a part of a community, our brains have a place to be.”

“Yeah, but in community you can so easily feel outnumbered,” I protested.

“Sure. Sure,” Bernard surprised me by agreeing. “But that’s because we look at it all wrong. Everyone is made to feel ineffectual. Even the president, the leader of the free world.”

“Meaning?” I raised my eyebrows.

“Well, we don’t acknowledge that we only exist in relationships. All of our thinking about the world imagines the oddest thing – it imagines that we exist in isolation from each other. If your model of the world is wrong, you can't be very effective.”

“Why?”

“Well part of it is the issue of reductionist thinking – the tradition of analysis in Western thought that loves to pull apart things to understand them, as if communities and markets and people were watches. But it is more than that,” Bernard took a sip of his coffee. “We get alone to think and then we make that assumption – this matter of being alone – the default assumption about the context. There was a reason that Socrates did his work in conversations. He knew that philosophy outside of a community was meaningless.”

“But they killed him.”

“Sure. But that was because what he did impacted the community. They wouldn’t have executed him if not for the fact that he actually had an influence.”

“So, what truth do we miss when we’re thinking in isolation, Bernard?” I knew he had something more to say.

“A hermit has no opportunity for love or compassion. Life comes out of interaction – our own lives get defined by our relationships. The quality and intensity of our relationships determine the quality and intensity of our lives. Your relationship to people you love or hate, your work or your play, the ideas that swirl around you. This is what you you experience of life. When loathing or contempt or apathy comes creeping into your relationships, that is what you experience of life. If your relationships get defined by love or engagement, that too is what you experience of life.”

“Wow.” I shook my head. “What’s in your coffee?”

Bernard smiled as warmly as I’ve seen him smile. “It is not a question of what is in my drink but instead, who is at my table.” He reached out to squeeze my hand, a gesture that suddenly felt oddly intimate, and said, “Thanks for giving me a place to be today. I needed this.”

"We all need to be," I said stupidly.

Bernard's Big Idea About Relationships

Bernard had a spark in his eye. I looked up from my morning paper and saw him looking at me with a grin.

“What?” I asked, wondering if I had crumbs on my chin.

“I’ve had an idea,” he said with a flourish of his hand, as if he were about to pull a rabbit out of his sleeve. And at that very moment, Maddie arrived, breathless and excited. Bernard seemed pleased she’d be here to witness this.

“You two already started?” she asked.

“He,” Bernard pointed at me, “never waits. In the morning it is all I can do to make him wait until we’re at a restaurant to eat. He wakes up hungry.”

“And you?” she said, “why couldn’t you wait?”

“I’m a social creature,” Bernard shrugged. “He eats and I eat with him.”

“What’s your big idea?” she asked. Bernard smiled, like he was about to lay down a royal flush after throwing in all his chips.

“It’s about universals in relationships.”

“You mean like alien abductions,” I asked. “Relationships across the universe?”

Bernard scowled. “No, you idiot. This – this I’m serious about.”

“Okay,” I folded up my paper. “Tell us.”

“Okay, it occurs to me that there are three universals across any kind of relationship – business, family, lovers.”

“Why three, Bernie?” asked Maddie who was now stirring one package each of splenda and sugar into her coffee.

“Why do you have five fingers?” Bernard gestured. “I don’t know why three. It just works out that way. Can I talk?”

“Sure, sure,” she said, looking for her waiter.

“Three universals: responsiveness, empathy, and inspiration.”

“That’s it?” Maddie said. “That’s your big idea?”

“Well let me explain,” Bernard said, drawing himself up. “The better a relationship, the more responsive two people are to each other – or a group is to each other. But it is not enough to respond. You can respond all wrong. You have to have empathy as well. Your response has to work for that person, show you know who they are. And ideally, in a relationship, someone inspires you – makes you feel more alive and more acutely aware of what great things are possible in your life. They respond to where you are now and have a sense of - and might even play a part in getting you to - where you could go with your life.”

Maddie and I chewed on this for a bit. Finally, Maddie spoke.

“Bernie, you are always abstract. What does this have to do with anything?”

“Relationships have to do with everything,” Bernard said.

“Well what relationship are you talking about, Bernie? How has this helped you?”

And with that Bernie looked deflated. He crumpled into his chair. Suddenly, he looked about 15 years older. He teared up.

“Maddie,” I said, starting to rebuke her.

“No,” Bernard waved her off. “She’s right.” He stared at the table cloth.

Maddie reached forward and touched his hand gently. “Bernie, hon. Ideas about relationships are not the same as real relationships. You might want to trade in your idea for a person. You think?”

Bernard just nodded. Sometimes ideas are kinder than the truth. I kind of wish that Maddie had just let him be, but then I realized that she couldn’t. She didn’t have that kind of relationship with her brother. And maybe that was the real lesson – our relationships never transcend who we are. Relationships are not things like responsiveness or potential as something that lies in the gap between us. Relationships emerge out of who people are and that might just be why we spend so much energy trying to change the people we’re in relationships with. Bernie did seem to have a good idea. The thing was, it wasn’t obvious that Bernie or Maddie or me or anyone was ever going to exploit that insight.

A Commitment to Extraordinary

I once had a philosophy professor who was a fascinating fellow. As a monk, he had kept a vow of silence for about a decade. By the time he was teaching us, he had things to say. I remember, at lunch, he once advised a couple of us young guys (I would have been about 18 or 19) not to ask a woman for a date – at least, not directly. Instead, he said, plan a great outing and then let her know that you’re going to do that and you’d be happy to have her along.

I’ve come to think that this is apt advice for any relationship. Work first on creating an extraordinary life, a great outing, if you will. And then invite people along. If you are going to see a beautiful sunset or painting, or walking through a great park, or eating at an extraordinary restaurant or any number of wonderful things, people will probably want to come along. They may even invite themselves. If you create a great life – one that is engaging, enjoyable, and meaningful - you’re likely to bring along others in your wake. They’ll be compelled to come along.

And even if you don’t bring along certain people on your trip to extraordinary, you still get to go to extraordinary. If you plan an extraordinary evening and get it right, it’ll be extraordinary whether or not the date you’d like to bring is with you. Given you can’t control other people, it’s probably best to make your commitment first to extraordinary. That’s not a bad environment for any relationship to unfold.

If you commit to a relationship first, you might find yourself compromising on extraordinary. and if you commit to extraordinary first, it is the rare person who - particularly if they are already in a relationship with you - won't want to come along.

Work or Play - Musings, Part 2 in a series

She wanted to work on her relationship with him, which was a pity, really, because it kind of missed the point. She was playful and if she wanted the relationship to thrive she wouldn’t work on it – she’d engage him in play. He had enough work during the week and didn’t need to couple that with working on his relationship. If she hadn’t tried so hard to work on her relationship, she might have seen this.

It Only Gets ...

Tonight, my wife and I went out to dinner and found ourselves waiting behind large groups of kids dressed for prom. Watching one large group gathered around a table, I couldn't help but laugh. They all look so obviously confused and uncertain about how to act with the opposite sex, wondering what to do. That was not what made me laugh. What made me laugh is that they probably thought that it would all become more clear in time.

The Fragility of Female Happiness

Maddie was giggling about something when I sat down.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“What’s up? It’s just a concept,” replied Bernard. “If we were in Australia, it would be a completely different direction.”
I stared at him, but he was not volunteering. “Maddie,” I asked. “Why are you laughing?”
“My brother here,” she said, touching Bernard on the shoulder, “thinks that he understands happiness.” She giggled again. “Tell him what you told me,” she said.
Bernard almost looked like he was pouting. “No.”
“Oh come on,” Maddie laughed. “Tell him.”
I could tell that Bernard was both pleased with what he was about to say and also felt more than a little inhibited because of Maddie’s reaction. His pride won out. “I was saying that happiness comes from alignment, a sense of integrity.” He began to motion, gesturing to his head and torso, “when your thoughts and feelings – your head, heart and gut – all line up, you feel happy. When you have conflict between those, you are not happy. It seems pretty simple,” he finished with a small thrust of his jaw and lower lip.
“Oh but it is,” says Maddie. “It is!”
“So why are you laughing, Maddie,” I asked.
“It makes sense to you, too, doesn’t it?” Maddie giggled again.
“Yeah,” I said hesitantly. “It does.”
“That is such a guy view of things. You consult yourself and determine if you are happy.”
“Well, yeah,” I said.
“That is so self contained, so self absorbed a view of the world. Your happiness comes from whatever is going on inside your skin.”
At this point I could begin to predict where she was going and I sat glumly, waiting for the indictment from her.
“Before a woman can be happy, she has to assess lots of people. Are the kids happy? Is my husband happy? My best friend? My sister or brother? My mom? A woman doesn’t know if she’s happy until she knows how the people she loves are doing."
“Men love too,” Bernard said, petulantly.
“Love? Really? Until your happiness is mixed up with the happiness of other people, Bernard, you don’t really love them.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it’s possible for you to feel happy even when your wife is feeling punk?”
“Yes,” Bernard said hesitantly. “Well, my ex-wives, I mean.”
“Ex-,” Maddie said. “Of course they are.”
Bernard stared at the wall. “So this is why women hate men?
“Because we love you?” Maddie said. “Yes.”
“If that is true,” I asked, about three points behind, “then how are women ever happy? I mean, if everyone in their network has to be happy first?”
“Female happiness is a fragile thing,” Maddie said. This time she was not laughing. She looked wistful. "Happiness for a woman comes from a web. A broken strand can ruin it.”
“Well, why don’t you adopt my philosophy,” inquired Bernard, obviously pleased that he could offer a solution. “It would make things simpler, no?”
“Why don’t I think like a man?” Maddie inquired. “Sure, Bernard. I’ll do that. And why don’t you grow wings?” And with that she began to giggle again, making me wonder if female happiness was so fragile then why was she the only one of us who did not look glum.

5 Change in Thinking - the Monty Hall Paradox

This Monty Hall Paradox is counter-intuitive. You're likely to win money betting on it with friends, a win-win because it'll teach them to look for relationships and earn you money.

Basically, get yourself three cards and another person. One should represent the dream job and the other two can represent your unemployment check. One person should play game show host, the other contestant. After the person chooses one card, lift up one of the cards she didn't choose - showing her the unemployment check. Now, ask her if she'd like to switch from the first card she picked to the one you didn't turn over.

This simulation is set up to allow a group of people to choose whether they will always stay with their first choice, always switch, or flip a coin to decide whether or not to switch. The narration in the video assumes that you've done this and run 20 simulations testing each rule, or scenario. Note that the most common belief - the , it doesn't matter so I'll flip a coin belief - actually falls into the category of self-fulfilling prophecy. If you flip a coin, you really do get 50-50 results. But if you challenge what you think you know, you'll probably learn something new.