HABIT 4
THINK “WIN-WIN”
As we begin this chapter, I’d like to give you an overview of Habits 4, 5, and 6. You may ask yourself, “Why are we getting into Habits 5 and 6 when we’re just beginning Habit 4?” It’s because these three habits are highly interwoven, and together they create a process that will be immensely helpful to you in accomplishing all the things we’ve talked about so far. In fact, I often teach these habits first because once you grasp the essence of this process, you have the key to working together effectively to solve any problem or accomplish any goal.
To illustrate how helpful this process is, let me share with you a demonstration I often use in teaching these habits. I typically select a man from the audience who is young, tall, strong, and obviously fit. I invite him to the stage and then challenge him to an arm wrestling contest. As he’s coming up, I tell him that I have never lost and don’t intend to start now. I tell him he’s going to lose and to get ready to lose. When he gets up to the stage, I stick my face right in his face and tell him the same things all over again. I get rather pushy, aggressive, and obnoxious. Obviously exaggerating a little, I let him know that in a few seconds he’s going to be lying flat out on the ground. I look at his belt and tell him that I have a black one and that his brown one is an entire order of magnitude different. I tell him that even though he’s twice my size, I will put him down. Almost inevitably this type of confrontation stirs the man up and steels his resolve to best me.
Then I ask the people in the front row if they will fund this operation so that if I put him down, I get a dime, and if he puts me down, he gets a dime. They always agree. I ask another audience member to keep track throughout the contest, because each time one of us puts the other down, that person gets another dime. I ask them to time us for thirty seconds and tell us when to start. Then I grab the man’s right hand, stand up right next to him, and give a grimacing, intimidating stare as we clasp hands and wait for the signal to go.
By this time the other person almost always is steeled to the task. The signal is given, and I immediately make my arm go limp. He puts me down. He usually tries to hold me there. Sometimes, feeling confused, he lets me up a little and then starts pushing to get me down again, which I quickly let him do. Then I struggle to get back up, and again the resistance starts. When we get to the top, he pushes me back down again.
This usually goes on for a few seconds, and then I say to the person, “Look, why don’t we both win?” Usually the other person gets the message and allows me to put him down once. But there is still tension and strain. Then I go limp and let him put me down again. It takes only a few more seconds before the two of us are working together—almost effortlessly—moving back and forth rapidly, putting each other’s arms down.
Then I look over to the front row and say, “Okay, how much do you owe us?” Everyone sees the point and begins to laugh.
Can you see the tremendous difference in what is happening at the beginning and the end of this demonstration? At first the feeling is completely adversarial. It’s “win-lose”: “I win; you lose.” There’s no effort to understand, to cooperate. There’s no seeking of a solution that’s good for both of us. There’s just a feeling of competition and the desire to win, to put the other down. Can you see how the tension of this “win-lose” approach translates into typical family squabbles—into arguments between marriage partners, between parents and children, between extended family members?
But by the end of the demonstration there’s been a significant shift in thinking. It’s no longer “I win; you lose.” It’s “Hey, we can both win—and win big! By understanding and cooperating creatively together, we can do something totally different that benefits us both far more than if either of us had ‘won’ in the other sense.” Can you sense something of the freedom, the creativity, the feeling of unity and shared accomplishment that comes when this is the typical approach to solving family problems?
To some extent we all have family interaction that resembles the beginning, but the more we can move toward the kind of creative and synergistic interaction where everyone wins, the more “beautiful,” the more effective, our family culture will be.
I often like to think of these three habits in terms of the root, the route, and the fruit.
• Habit 4—Think “win-win”—is the root. It’s the fundamental paradigm of seeking mutual benefit, or the “Golden Rule.” It’s the underlying motive, the nurturing attitude out of which understanding and synergy grow.
• Habit 5—Seek first to understand … then to be understood—is the route. It’s the method, the pathway that leads to rich interdependent interaction. It’s the ability to step out of your own autobiography and really get into the head and heart of someone else.
• Habit 6—Synergize—is the fruit. It’s the result, the end product, the rich reward of the effort. It’s creating transcendent third-alternative solutions. It’s not “your way” or “my way”; it’s a better, a higher way.
Together, these three habits create the process that leads to the most phenomenal magic in family life—the ability to work together to create new ideas, new solutions that are better than any individual family member could ever come up with alone. In addition, they build moral authority into the culture by integrating the principles of mutual respect, mutual understanding, and creative cooperation into the very structures, systems, and processes of the family. This goes way beyond the goodness of the people and the quality of their relationships. It causes perpetuation and internalization and institutionalization of these principles into the norms and mores and traditions of the culture itself.
The question is this: “Would you be willing to search for a solution that is better than what either of us is now proposing?”
And what a difference this makes! Going back to the airplane metaphor, we could say that while it may be challenging to reach your destination when there’s turbulent weather outside the plane, it’s even more difficult when the turbulence is in the social weather inside the plane—when there’s contention, bickering, fighting, complaining, and criticizing between pilots or between the pilots and the crew or control tower.
Creating great social weather inside the cockpit is the focus of Habits 4, 5, and 6. And what it essentially involves is helping family members learn to ask one question and make one commitment.
The commitment is this: “Let me listen to you first” or “Help me understand.”
The question is this: “Would you be willing to search for a solution that is better than what either of us is now proposing?”
The commitment is this: “Let me listen to you first” or “Help me understand.”
If you have the personal security and the skill and will to do these two things sincerely and consistently, you will be able to live Habits 4, 5, and 6.
Now most of this process is completely within your Circle of Influence. Going back to the arm wrestling demonstration, notice that all it takes to change the situation is for one person to think win-win—not two, only one. This is an extremely important point because most people are willing to think win-win if others will, but all it takes is one proactive person to think it deep inside and to genuinely want a solution that is ultimately win-win. You think win-win—not win-lose or lose-win—even when and even because others do not.
It also takes only one person to seek first to understand. In the arm wrestling example, this is manifested by immediately going limp and seeking first the interest of the other person. In life it means to seek first the interest of the other, to understand the other person’s needs, wants, and concerns.
So both Habits 4 and 5 can be done by one proactive person.
But Habit 6—Synergize—takes two. This is the exciting adventure of creating something new with someone, and it grows out of the win-win thinking and understanding created by Habits 4 and 5. The magical thing about synergy is that not only does it create new alternatives but it is also tremendously bonding to the relationship because you create something new together. It’s like what happens between parents who have created a child together. That child becomes a powerful bonding force in the relationship. It brings them together. It gives them a common bond, a common vision, a common interest, a common stewardship that transcends and subordinates other interests. Can you see how this builds the relationship, how it builds the Emotional Bank Account?
These three habits represent the essence of “family”—the deep inner movement from “me” to “we.” So let’s take a closer look now at these habits, beginning with Habit 4—Think “win-win.”
No One Likes to Lose
One father shared this experience in coming to understand why his son was so unhappy:
Our two boys were very competitive in their relationship with each other. This resulted in frequent squabbles between the two. When the oldest was twelve and the youngest was ten, we went on a long-awaited vacation. But just when we should have been enjoying ourselves the most, the conflict between these two heated up to the point that it was affecting us all in a negative manner. I felt that the older boy was more to blame than the younger one, so I went for a walk with him so that we could talk. When confronted with my criticism of his behavior, he abruptly announced, “The thing you don’t understand is that I can’t stand my brother.”
When I asked him why, he said, “He’s always saying things to me that really bug me. On this vacation we’re always around each other in the car or wherever we go, and I get so I can’t stand to be near him. I wish you would buy me a bus ticket and just let me go home so I wouldn’t have to see him anymore.”
I was shocked by the intensity of his negative feelings toward his brother. Nothing I could say had any effect in making him see things differently.
We returned to the tent where we were camped. I asked my younger son to come for a walk with us. He didn’t want to go when he found out his older brother was going to go along. The older one didn’t want to go, either, but I encouraged both boys to give it a chance. They finally agreed, so we hiked to the top of a nearby ridge where the three of us sat down and began to talk.
I addressed the older boy, “You said some things about your brother. Now he is here, and I’d like you to tell him personally what you told me.”
He spoke right up and said, “I hate this vacation, and I want to go home just to get away from you.”
The younger boy was hurt by these cutting words. Blinking at the sudden tears that came to his eyes, he looked down and quietly said, “Why?”
His older brother was quick and certain with his answer, “Because you’re always saying things that make me mad. I just don’t want to be around you.”
The younger brother sighed. “I just do that because every time we play a game you always win.”
“Well, sure I always win,” the older boy quickly replied. “I’m better than you.”
With that the little boy could hardly speak. But then from the depths of his heart he said, “Yeah, but every time you win, I lose. And I just can’t stand to lose all the time. So I say things to bug you.… I don’t want you to go home. I like being with you. But I just can’t stand to lose all the time.”
These tearful words reached the heart of the older brother. The tone of his words softened as he said, “Okay, I won’t go home. But will you please just stop saying and doing the stupid things that make me so mad at you?”
“Okay,” the younger boy replied. “And will you stop feeling that you always have to win?”
That little talk saved our vacation. It didn’t make things perfect, but it made them tolerable. I don’t think the older boy ever forgot his little brother’s words: “I just can’t stand to lose all the time.”
I know I’ll never forget my young son’s words. Losing all the time or even most of the time can make any of us say and do stupid things that bug others and even bug ourselves.
No one likes to lose—especially in close family relationships. But we typically go into situations with a win-lose mind-set. And most of the time we don’t even realize it.
Many of us came out of homes where we were always being compared to a brother or sister. In school we were graded “on the curve,” which means that if one person got an A, it was usually because someone else got a C. Our society is literally saturated with win-lose—forced ranking systems, normal distribution schools, competitive athletics, job openings, political contests, beauty contests, television games, and lawsuits.
And all of this also gets scripted into our family life. So when we have preschool children struggling for autonomy, or teenagers struggling for identity, or siblings competing for attention, or parents trying to maintain order and discipline, or marriage partners arguing for their own way, we naturally fall into win-lose patterns of behavior.
The Consequence of Win-Lose
I remember one day when I returned home to my little girl’s third-year birthday party and found her in the corner of the front room, defiantly clutching all of her presents, unwilling to let the other children play with them. The first thing I noticed was several parents in the room witnessing this selfish display. I was embarrassed, and doubly so because at the time I was teaching university classes in human relations. And I knew, or at least felt, the expectation of these parents.
The atmosphere in the room was really charged. The children were crowding around my little daughter with their hands out, asking to play with the presents they had just given, and my daughter was adamantly refusing. I said to myself, “Certainly I should teach my daughter to share. The value of sharing is one of the most basic things we believe in.”
I first tried a simple request: “Honey, would you please share with your friends the toys they’ve given you?”
“No!” she replied flatly.
My second method was to use a little reasoning: “Honey, if you learn to share your toys with them when they are at your home, then when you go to their homes, they will share their toys with you.”
Again the immediate reply was “No!”
I was becoming a little more embarrassed, for it was evident I was having no influence. The third method was bribery. Very softly I said, “Honey, if you share, I have a special surprise for you. I’ll give you a piece of gum.”
“I don’t want gum!” she exploded.
Now I was becoming exasperated. For my fourth attempt I resorted to fear and threat: “Unless you share, you will be in real trouble!”
“I don’t care!” she cried. “These are mine! I don’t have to share!”
Finally, I resorted to force. I simply grabbed some of the toys and tossed them to the other kids. I said, “Here, kids! Play with these.”
Since our daughter’s birthday party, both Sandra and I have come a long way as parents in understanding that children go through developmental stages. We now understand that expecting that kind of sharing for a child younger than five or six is not realistic. And even then, tiredness, confusion, or special issues of ownership may make it difficult.
But when you’re caught up in a moment like that—with all that emotion, with all that pressure—it is hard! You feel you’re right. In fact, you know you’re right. You’re bigger. You’re stronger. And it seems so much easier to go for “win-lose,” to have your own way.
But what’s the result of that choice in terms of the relationship, in terms of the Emotional Bank Account? And what’s going to happen if you keep thinking win-lose down the road? And what about a marriage? What happens when win-lose is the typical interaction?
You’re right. You’re bigger. You’re stronger. And it seems so much easier to go for “win-lose,” to have your own way.
I know of one man who worked in a profession that was not interesting to his wife. She didn’t like what he did or the people he worked with. They weren’t “her kind of people.” When his work group planned a Christmas party, he hopefully but skeptically asked her to go. She flatly refused, saying that there was no way she would be at a party with people who engaged in activities that were repulsive to her. He attended the party alone. She won. He lost.
Two months later her social group sponsored a lecture. A noted author was coming to speak. There would be a reception prior to the lecture. She was to be the hostess. She assumed that he would go with her. She was shocked when he told her that morning that he wasn’t going to go. In an annoyed tone she asked, “Why not?” He curtly replied, “I don’t want to be around your friends any more than you wanted to be around my friends at my Christmas party.” He won. She lost.
She didn’t speak to him that afternoon when he came home from work. She left for the reception without saying good-bye, and he went to the family room and turned on the TV to watch a football game.
Now what is the impact on the relationship and on the family when a marriage is filled with ego battles, when partners are more concerned about having their own way than in building the relationship? Does anyone ever really “win”?
The Consequence of Lose-win
On the other hand, what happens if the typical interaction is lose-win?
One woman shared this experience:
I was very successful in school—captain of the debate team, editor of the yearbook, first chair clarinet player. I always seemed to excel at whatever I decided I wanted to do. But as I went away to college, I knew that I really didn’t want a career. I felt that being a wife and mother was the most important thing I could do with my life.
After my freshman year of college I married Steve, a young man I had been dating from the time I was fourteen. Being Miss Overachiever, I had several children in a very short period of time. I can remember feeling overwhelmed by all the tasks related to having that many young children.
The most difficult part was that I had virtually no help at all from my husband. His job kept him on the road quite a bit, but even when he was home, he basically felt that it was his job to provide, and all the responsibilities for the care and upkeep of the home and children were mine.
My idea had been very different. I thought we were functioning together as a unit, and while I understood that I was at home to nurture these children and to help take care of their physical needs and all that, I had thought that we would be working together as husband and wife in deciding what the course of our lives would be. But that wasn’t the case at all.
I can remember getting through days when I would look at the clock and think, “Okay, it’s 9:00. I can do this for the next fifteen minutes, and I can do it with a good attitude.” I almost had to manage myself in those fifteen-minute increments because if I tried to look at the whole day, it just seemed overwhelming to me.
My husband’s expectations of me were extremely high. I was expected to be the perfect housekeeper, the perfect cook, the perfect mother. He would come home after being gone for a week, and the whole house would be immaculate, the children would be asleep, and I would offer him a piece of a cherry pie I had baked. It was his favorite kind of pie. He would sit down at the table, look at it, and say, “You know, the crust is burned a little bit.” I felt worthless. I thought I had failed. Regardless of what accomplishment I made, it seemed it was never good enough. There was never a pat on the back or praise—always just continual criticism and, ultimately, abuse.
He became more and more violent. He also became involved in extramarital sex. On his business trips he would go to places for the purpose of meeting people with whom he could have sex. I even discovered later that he had membership cards for such clubs in eight different cities across the country.
At one point I begged him to go to counseling with me. He finally agreed, but there wasn’t any real interest on his part at all. One evening when we went in, he was particularly angry. As we walked into his office and sat down, the counselor turned to my husband and said, “You seem really agitated tonight. Do you have something on your mind?”
My husband said, “Yes. I am sick and tired of having to constantly clean up after everybody.”
I was dying inside, thinking that I had put all that work and all that energy and years of effort into creating the perfect home. I had made all my own curtains and toss pillows and all the children’s clothes. I had baked bread, kept the house very, very clean, and was always caught up with the laundry, and so forth. What had I missed?
The counselor said to Steve, “Could you help me understand exactly what it is that you are picking up after other people?” There was a long silence, and we could feel Steve thinking. He was thinking and thinking, and finally, with a lot of passion, he blurted out, “This morning when I took a shower, someone had left the cap off the shampoo bottle!”
I can remember feeling as though I was growing smaller and smaller as I sat there in my chair and thought, Something doesn’t feel right here. It just doesn’t feel right.
Then the counselor asked another question: “Steve, what else did you have to clean up today?” Again, the long pause. You could feel Steve thinking and thinking, and his response was “Well, that was enough!”
It was right at that point, when I was feeling about one inch high, that I realized for the first time that no matter what I did, he would continue to criticize and see things wrong. For the first time I began to realize that the problem was his—not mine.
I went through a lot of internal struggle during those years. I spent a lot of time trying to please him and to fix me. I even went to the hospital emergency room to ask them to admit me. When they asked why I felt I needed to be admitted to the hospital, I said, “I have created an answer to my problem, and the answer frightens me.”
They said, “What do you mean?”
And I said, “I have made a decision and purchased the equipment to shoot each of my children as they come in the door from school and then to turn the gun on myself because life is unbearable.” At that time I was thinking that the world was a big and wicked place anyway, and the best thing to do for them would be to take them with me. It scared the heck out of me when I realized that that was my decision. Luckily, I was lucid enough to be able to go to the hospital and say, “I have decided to do it, I have the stuff to do it, and I plan to do it. But I know it’s not right. Please help me.”
I look back now and realize how interesting it is that I wasn’t going to shoot him. It was me. It was always me.
Ultimately, this woman showed tremendous proactive courage in realizing that this was her husband’s problem. She ended up getting a college degree, moving her family to a new location, and building a new life—without “Steve.” But just look at what happened as a result of all those years when her attitude was essentially lose-win and she was codependent on a husband who was filled with the spirit of chauvinism and irresponsibility.
For most people the lose-win attitude is “I’m a martyr. Go ahead, step on me. Have your way with me. Everyone else does.” But what is the consequence of this type of attitude in a relationship? Is there any way that this pattern is going to build a rich, long-term relationship of trust and love?
Win-Win—the Only Long-term Viable Alternative
Really, the only long-term viable alternative is win-win. In fact, it is the essence of a beautiful family culture. Both win-lose and lose-win will ultimately result in lose-lose.
If you’re a parent, habitual win-lose will absolutely bankrupt the Emotional Bank Account. You may get your way in the short run, particularly when children are little. You’re bigger, you’re stronger, you can get your way. But what happens when those children become teenagers? Will they be clear-thinking adolescents, empowered to make good choices on their own? Or will they be so engaged in a reactive struggle for identity, so focused on “winning” in the relationship, that they have no real chance to connect with their own unique gifts or with you as a genuine source of help?
On the other hand, with lose-win you may be popular in the short run because you essentially take the course of least resistance and continuously let others have their way with you. But there’s no vision, no standard, no respect. And children end up reaping the consequences of myopic decisions made without the perspective of a parent’s guidance and experience and decisive strength. There’s no doubt that it’s a long-term loss for a child who grows up without principle-based values and a relationship of respect with parents. And it’s a loss for both child and parent when the relationship is based on manipulation and popularity rather than trust.
There’s no doubt that it’s a long-term loss for a child who grows up without principle-based values and a relationship of respect with parents.
And what about a marriage? What kind of impact does it have on the relationship and on the culture when marriage partners are constantly engaged in ego battles, when they’re more concerned about who is right than what is right? Or what is the impact when one spouse becomes a doormat, a martyr? There’s no win in it. It’s a lose for everyone in the family.
I’ve been working with this win-win habit in the context of the 7 Habits now for over twenty years, and many have asked, particularly when it comes to the family, whether or not it’s always applicable. It’s my experience that the concept of trying to develop a win-win relationship is always applicable, but all decisions and agreements won’t necessarily be win-win.
Sometimes you may make an unpopular or a win-lose decision with a child because you know it’s wise. You know it’s not a win, for example, for a child to stay out of school, to avoid being inoculated, or to play in the street instead of the playground—even though the child may really want to. But you can explain unpopular decisions in a way that does not show disrespect to that child and that keeps your decisions from becoming withdrawals. If it’s on an issue that is terribly important to the child, you may need to spend more time understanding and explaining so that that child will eventually feel the spirit of win-win even though he or she may not like the decision—and sometimes even you—for a short season.
At other times you may choose to go for what appears to be lose-win because of time pressure and because the issue is peripheral or secondary and the person is central or primary. The principle is this: What is important to another person must be as important to you as the other person is to you. In other words, in your heart you essentially say, “My love for you is so great and our happiness is so entwined that I would not feel good if I got my way and you were unhappy—particularly when you feel so strongly about it.”
The principle is this: What is important to another person must be as important to you as the other person is to you.
Now some might say that by doing this you have given in, capitulated, or compromised. But this is not so. You have merely shifted your emotional focus from the particular issue or decision to the value of the person you love and the quality of your relationship with that person. And in doing so, what might seem to be lose-win is really a win-win.
In other situations it may be that the issue that is important to someone else is also really important to you, and so you’ll need to move toward synergy—to find some transcendent purpose or value that unites you, enabling the release of creative juices to find a better way in actualizing that value or achieving that goal or purpose. But as you can see, in all of these instances the spirit and the eventual outcome is always win-win.
Win-win is really the only solid foundation for effective family interaction. It’s the only pattern of thinking and interacting that builds long term relationships of trust and unconditional love.
From “Me” to “We”
One man shared this experience:
One day several years ago my wife and I learned that my mother and stepfather had died in a plane crash. We were devastated. Family gathered from all over the country to attend the funeral, and afterward we sadly turned to the task of packing up all their possessions.
During the packing it became evident that some of my siblings had strong feelings about having certain things, and they did not hesitate to make them known.
“Who are you to assume that you get that chest?”
“I can’t believe that he thinks he is going to get that antique painting!”
“Just look at how ‘grabby’ she is—and she’s an in-law.”
I found myself being sucked into the same spirit of criticism, and I soon realized that dividing these possessions could deeply divide the family and leave a wake of hurt and isolation. To keep that from happening, I decided to focus on things I could influence in a positive way.
First, I suggested to the others that we allow ourselves some time—weeks or even months if necessary—before we attempted to decide who got what. Meanwhile, everything could be placed in storage.
Second, I suggested that we all work on developing a process for dividing the things that would help draw us together as a family and strengthen our relationships, and would also enable us to have items that we either needed or would really enjoy and that would help us remember Mother and John. Everyone seemed to like the ideas and agreed.
But it wasn’t that simple. In the months that followed, it was easy to get sucked into thinking, Hey, wait a minute! I wanted that, too. But I kept coming back to the end in mind. I said, “Okay, what’s most important here? It’s the relationships. It’s the outcome. So how can we do this?” I just kept trying to affirm that we needed to work so that everyone would be happy.
We finally put together a list of all the possessions so that everyone knew what was available. We gave a copy of the list to everyone with a little note reminding them of our end goal as a family. We said, “Would you please go through this list and number in order the top five things that you would like? As you do that, consider the other members of the family, because we want everyone to be happy.”
We asked all to come prepared so that if another family member was bashful about expressing a desire, they could be sensitive and plead for that family member’s getting a certain thing.
When the day for dividing the possessions came, I realized that, despite all our good intentions, there was a high potential for quite a volatile situation. Feeling the need to reconnect with our purpose, I said, “Remember, we are here because we love these two people and we love one another. We want to come out of this experience happy. We want these next few hours to be something that would bring Mom and John happiness if they were here.”
And so we all agreed: “We are not going to leave this place until we all feel good about what each person has.” We tapped into everyone’s love for both of these people and into a sense of responsibility to maintain a spirit of love and kindness and consideration toward other family members. We tapped into people’s highest qualities. And the results were amazing.
Each of us took a turn expressing what we had put on our list and why it was important to us. As we shared memories around these things, we found ourselves reminiscing about our experiences with Mom and John. We found ourselves laughing and joking and really enjoying sharing and being together.
When we’d all had our turns, we realized that there was really very little overlap. And when two people expressed a desire for the same thing, one would say, “Gosh, that was on my list, but I can totally see why that would mean so much to you. I’d really like for you to have it.”
And toward the end we felt much love for one another and love and gratitude for Mom and John and their lives. It was like an experience dedicated to their honor.
Notice how this man was able to become a transition person in his family. Notice how he made the proactive choice that the welfare of this entire family was his highest priority. This man was truly thinking win-win.
Most of the people in this situation had what we could call a scarcity mentality: “There’s only one pie, so if you get a bigger piece, then I get less.” So everything has to be win-lose.
But this man was able to develop an abundance mentality, the idea that there’s plenty for everyone and that there is an infinite number of third-alternative solutions, better ways to work things out that make a win for everyone.
This abundance mentality is the spirit of “family.” It’s the spirit of “we.” And this is what marriage and family are all about.
This abundance mentality is the spirit of “family.” It’s the spirit of “we.” And this is what marriage and family are all about.
There are some who would say, “The hardest thing about getting married or having children is that it changes your entire lifestyle. You can no longer just focus on your own schedule, your own priorities. You have to sacrifice. You have to think about others, about meeting their needs, about what makes them happy.”
And this is true. A good marriage and a good family require service and sacrifice. But when you truly love another and share a transcendent sense of purpose in creating the “we”—such as raising a child—then sacrifice is nothing more than giving up something small for something big. True fulfillment comes from sacrifice. It is this very shift from “me” to “we” that makes family, family!
As J. S. Kirtley and Edward Bok said:
He who carries a wrong heart into the married life and cherishes it in selfishness or finds there a selfish heart that persists in remaining wrong, will make or find married life irritating, galling, unbearable.… One who expects to be ministered to in the married state is acting on a principle that will pervert the whole life. He who marries for the purpose of receiving, rather than bestowing, makes a false start.… “Married life can never be what it ought to be while the husband or wife makes personal happiness the main object.”1
The spirit of wanting the best for everyone and being willing to love and sacrifice to make that happen is the true spirit of win-win.
The reality is that—not in spite of but because of their challenges—marriage and family life are the character-building crucible out of which true joy and fulfillment come. As Michael Novak has observed:
Marriage is an assault upon the lonely, atomic ego. Marriage is a threat to the solitary individual. Marriage does impose grueling, humbling, baffling, and frustrating responsibilities. Yet if one supposes that precisely such things are the preconditions for all true liberation, marriage is not the enemy of moral development in adults. Quite the opposite.…
Being married and having children has impressed on my mind certain lessons, for whose learning I cannot help being grateful. Most are lessons of difficulty and duress. Most of what I am forced to learn about myself is not pleasant.… My dignity as a human being depends perhaps more on what sort of husband and parent I am, than on any professional work I am called upon to do. My bonds to [my family] hold me back (and my wife even more) from many sorts of opportunities. And yet these do not feel like bonds. They are, I know, my liberation. They force me to be a different sort of human being, in a way in which I want and need to be forced.2
It is totally and sadly amazing to see beautiful marriage ceremonies take place with all the excitement, social support, beauty, and romance and then see those marriages turn sour and end up in bitterness, in vindictiveness, in the polarization of even families and friends who were once so warm to one another, so knitted together.
When you think about it, the two people haven’t changed that much. What has changed is the movement from independence to interdependence—which ultimately changes all circumstances. With the coming forth of children and responsibilities, the rigors and demands of emotional, intellectual, social, and spiritual interdependence far exceed any understanding or vision the original “honeymooners” had. If there is continual growth on both their parts—and growth together—the increasing responsibilities and obligations will unite and bond them in profound ways. If not, it will eventually tear them apart.
It’s also interesting to see how there are always two sides to every breakup and how both sides are usually convinced they are right and the other is wrong. And again, both sides generally represent individuals who are basically good, and haven’t really changed that much. But independent mind-sets simply will not work in an interdependent relationship and environment. Marriage and family life is truly the “graduate school” of mortality.
One man who married at the age of thirty said this:
When I first got married, I thought I was the most giving, kind, generous, outgoing, unselfish person. But I came to realize I am one of the most selfish, egotistical, self-absorbed people around. And I’m brought up against it constantly because the challenge is always there: doing what I know I should do versus doing what I want to do short term.
I get home from work. It’s been a long day and I’m tired, and what I want to do is crawl into my own little cave. I want to escape. I don’t want to worry about a relationship or anyone or anything else. I just want to immerse myself in a hobby or a project or anything where I don’t have to think.
And yet I know I ought to focus on that relationship and spend some quality time with my wife. I need to realize that she has needs and wants, and I need to listen to her.
For thirty years my life was about me. It wasn’t about anyone else. And now that I’m married, I realize my life can’t be about me anymore. It’s about us. If I’m serious about making my marriage work, then I’ve got to make that commitment. “My life is not about me; it’s about us.” Sure there’s personal development and I still need personal time. But there’s also that relationship, and if it’s important to me, I must put the time and effort into it—even when I don’t feel like it, even when I’m tired or cranky or ornery.
In her book Lucky in Love: The Secrets of Happy Couples and How Their Marriages Thrive, Catherine Johnson shares her research regarding factors that make marriages happy and long-lasting. Among those factors, she highlights two beautiful ideas:
1. Both partners stop being single at heart and become married at heart. Their two souls become one, and each sees the other as his or her best friend.
2. They care more about the health of the relationship than they do about winning arguments. They are self-aware and can hear and evaluate themselves from their partner’s perspective.3
The kind of sacrifice and service required to achieve a beautiful family culture creates the ultimate “win” in terms of character and fulfillment for those who love as well as for those who are loved. And that is the true spirit of win-win. In fact, it’s really win-win-win—a win for the individual, a win for the marriage and family, and a huge win for the society that’s benefited by fulfilled individuals and strong families.
How to Cultivate the Spirit of Win-Win
To think win-win means that you try to have this spirit of win-win in all family interactions. You always want what’s best for everyone involved.
As a parent, you know that there will be times when your children want to do things that aren’t going to create a win for them. Most young, inexperienced people tend to act on their wants, not their needs. Those who care for them are usually more mature, more experienced, and wiser, and are willing to focus on needs rather than wants. Therefore, they often make decisions that are unpopular and that appear to be win-lose.
But parenting is not about being popular and giving in to every child’s whim and desire. It’s about making decisions that truly are win-win—however they may appear to the child at the time.
Always keep in mind that parenting is basically a “dissatisfaction” business, and it takes a high level of maturity and commitment for parents to realize that and adjust their expectations accordingly. Remember, what makes kids happy is not the opposite of what makes them unhappy or what dissatisfies them. The lack of air, for example, is a dissatisfier. Air doesn’t really satisfy you—but if you don’t have it, you are extremely dissatisfied. “Air” in the home is what you as a parent provide in terms of understanding, support, encouragement, love, and consistency. To not have these things is a dissatisfier. Without them, the kids would be unhappy. But having them won’t make the kids happy. So parents need to adjust their expectations accordingly.
Parenting is not about being popular and giving in to every child’s whim and desire. It’s about making decisions that truly are win-win—however they may appear to the child at the time.
Frederick Herzberg first introduced this satisfaction/dissatisfaction idea in his “hygiene motivation theory,” which has staggering implications for parents.
1. Don’t expect a lot of praise and appreciation from your children. If it comes, it’s icing on the cake. But don’t expect it.
2. Be happy and eliminate as many dissatisfiers as possible.
3. Don’t define satisfactions for your kids. You simply can’t force natural processes.4
As a parent, you’re going to deal with all kinds of expressions of dissatisfaction from your children. But remember that all the things you do to provide the basic underpinnings of happiness and security for your child usually aren’t talked about. So don’t make the mistake of thinking that your children’s expressions of dissatisfaction represent the quality of the job you’re doing as a parent.
The key is the relationship. People will basically allow you to deal with their needs rather than with their wants when they trust you and know that you sincerely care. So if you cultivate the spirit of win-win whenever you possibly can, children will have the context to understand and accept those decisions that seem to them to be win-lose. And there are several ways that you can do this.
You can let them win in the little things. When children are little, 90 percent of the things are small. In our own family, if our children wanted to set up a swing in the family room, go outside, get dirty, or leave a fort in the house for weeks, we’d generally let them do it. It was a win for them; it was a win for us. It strengthened the relationship. In general we try to distinguish between matters of principle and matters of preference, and take a stand only on the things that really count.
You can interact with them around the big things. In this way they will know you have their welfare in mind, that you’re not out to build your own ego or focus on your own selfish concerns. You can be open to their influence. As much as you can, involve them in the problem and work out the solution together. They may have an idea that’s genuinely better than yours. Or maybe by interacting you can synergize and create a new alternative that’s better than either yours or theirs.
You can take steps to offset the competition focus. One time I went to watch my granddaughter play in a soccer match. She’s a good player, and we all felt excited because this was the key game between two top teams from two different cities. The parents on both sides of the field got really involved as the players battled back and forth in a very close game. Finally, the game ended in a tie—which to our coach was not as bad as a loss, but almost.
After the game was over, players from both teams went through the mechanical process of saying, “Good game, good game,” as they shook hands. But our team was demoralized. You could see it in their faces. And the coach was out there trying to assuage them a little, but they knew that he was also deeply disappointed. And so they were walking across the field with their heads down.
As they approached the group of parents where I was standing, I spoke up enthusiastically, “All right, kids! That was a great game! You had five goals: to try your best, to have fun, to work together as a team, to learn, and to win. And you accomplished four and a half of those goals. That’s ninety percent! That’s tremendous! Congratulations!”
You could just see their eyes brighten up, and it wasn’t long before both players and parents were celebrating over the four and a half goals these kids had achieved.
A teenage girl shared this experience:
As a sophomore I played on the girls high school basketball team. I was pretty good for my age and tall enough to be a starter on the varsity team although I was just a sophomore. My friend Pam, a sophomore as well, was also moved up to be a starter on the varsity squad.
I had a sweet little shot I could hit quite regularly from ten feet out. I began making four or five of those shots a game and getting recognized for it. It soon became apparent that Pam didn’t like all the attention I was getting and decided, consciously or not, to keep the ball from me. It didn’t matter how open I was for the shot, Pam stopped passing the ball to me.
One night after playing a terrible game in which Pam kept the ball from me most of the game, I was as mad as I had ever been. I spent many hours talking with my dad, going over everything, and expressing my anger toward my friend-turned-enemy, Pam the jerk. After a long discussion, my dad told me that the best thing he could think of was to give Pam the ball every time I got it. Every time. I thought it was the stupidest suggestion he had ever given me. He told me it would work and left me at the kitchen table to think about it. But I didn’t. I knew it wouldn’t work and put it aside as silly fatherly advice.
For the next game I planned and plotted and went out with a mission to ruin Pam’s game. On my first possession of the ball, I heard my dad above the crowd. He had a booming voice, and though I shut out everything around me while playing basketball, I could always hear Dad’s deep voice. At the moment I caught the ball, he yelled out, “Give her the ball!” I hesitated for one second and then did what I knew was right. Although I was open for a shot, I found Pam and passed her the ball. She was shocked for a moment, then turned and shot, sinking the ball for two points.
As I ran down the court to play defense, I felt something I had never felt before: true joy for the success of another human being. And, even more, I realized that it put us ahead in the game. It felt good to be winning. I continued to give her the ball every time I got it in the first half. Every time. In the second half I did the same, shooting only if it was a designated play or if I was wide open for a shot.
We won that game, and in the games that followed, Pam began to pass me the ball as much as I passed it to her. Our teamwork was getting stronger and stronger, and so was our friendship. We won the majority of our games that year and became a legendary small town duo. The local newspaper even did an article on our ability to pass to each other and sense each other’s presence. It was as if we could read each other’s mind. Overall, I scored more points than ever before. When I scored, I could feel her genuine happiness for me. And when she scored more than I did, I felt especially good inside.*
Even in a win-lose situation such as in athletics, there are things you can do to help create a win-win spirit and to emphasize the overall context of win-win. In our family we’ve discovered we often have a more enjoyable time together if we go for a “team” score.
Sandra:
When our family included infants to teenagers, it was hard to find an activity that everyone could enjoy. Sometimes we would go bowling. All could participate at the level they were at, but the winners were always the same people—the larger, stronger, and more skilled.
We tried to figure out a way that it could become a win for everyone and finally found a system that worked. Instead of adding up individual scores and having the person with the most points win, we added up the total of everyone’s score. We set an arbitrary goal of so many points we had to reach in order to win as a family. If we met the goal, we would be able to have ice cream sundaes or root beer floats or banana splits as a reward for meeting our goal. So instead of getting upset when someone else had a strike or did much better, we were cheering all of us to do our best so our points would add up to our goal.
This became a win-win for the entire family and a very synergistic solution. Instead of having winners and losers, we hoped each person would do his or her best. We cheered each other on. We had a common goal. One extra point would make the difference in going out for pizza or ice cream instead of going home.
We’ve also found that involving one child in training another child diminishes the rivalry between those children. Both children honor and respect the one child’s achievement because they were both involved.
Sandra:
Sean and David were only eighteen months apart in age. Sometimes there was competition and rivalry. When David was learning to read, for example, Sean would often mimic him and make him cry. Slowly and haltingly, David would stumble on the words, “Mary … went … to … the … store.” Sean would crawl out from his hiding place and repeat in the same slow manner, “Mary … went … to … the … store,” teasing and laughing and making fun of David until he started crying.
We would interact with him: “Sean, David is trying to learn to read. You had to learn to read. It’s hard at first. Stop teasing him. He’s your little brother, for heaven sakes! Don’t make him cry—just leave him alone.”
This went on for some time until we finally came up with a better solution. Taking Sean aside, we visited with him. “Sean, how would you like to take an assignment? You are older than David, and you already know how to read. Do you think that you could teach David to read? That would be so nice. Sit down with him every day for one half-hour and see if you can help him better than we were able to.”
Sean thought about this and decided to do it. After a few days he brought David by the hand and presented him to us with this exclamation: “Listen to David read. I’ve been teaching him every day, and he sounds really good.” David would open his book and proceed to read, “Mary … went … to … the … store,” sounding slow and unsteady, just as he had a few days earlier.
We said, “Congratulations, Sean! You’ve taught David how to read.” Sean was beaming, full of pride for being the master teacher. David was happy, too, knowing that his brother thought he sounded great. It was a win for both of them. Sean had become the teacher, bringing his student to us for approval. David had become the learner, proud of his accomplishments.
There are many ways to create win-win situations—even for the youngest of children. As became clear at our daughter’s birthday party, young children go through many developmental stages, including the need to own or possess their toys before they’re willing to share. Once we as parents understand these types of concepts, we can help our children move toward win-win:
“What’s all the crying about? Oh, look, Johnnie feels bad. Why do you think he feels bad? Do you think it’s because you took that toy away from him? These are your toys. They belong to you. What do you think we can do to make Johnnie feel happy and make you feel good inside, too? You want to share? What a good idea! Now both of you will be happy.”
Sandra:
I remember our two-year-old being mildly resentful and anxious about the time I spent nursing her younger brother. Finally, I said, “Why don’t you run and choose your favorite book for me to read to you while I’m nursing the baby? The baby is so little, he just eats and falls asleep, and you and I have all this time to spend together by ourselves.” It became our story reading time and solved the problem.
Creating Win-Win Agreements
Some of the biggest deposits and withdrawals in the family come from how you handle expectations. Sometimes people just assume certain things about relationships. These things are never talked about, but the assumptions, the expectations, are there. And when these expectations are not fulfilled, it becomes a major withdrawal.
The key is in creating clear expectations up front, and family “win-win agreements” can help you do this. One woman shared this experience of developing a win-win agreement with a daughter who was taking the lower road:
We have a daughter who is very social. She enjoys all forms of activities and always has been involved in every form of dancing, cheerleading, sports, drama, and music.
When she entered high school, it seemed like heaven to her with so many opportunities for fun and socializing—and especially getting to know all the new boys she was meeting. But it wasn’t long before her grades started to drop and home became more of a hotel. It seemed as if she had lost her good sense and was just bouncing of the wall in her attempt to be part of the “real world” and fit in.
We were deeply concerned because we could see a smart girl starting to go down a very unhealthy and unproductive path. So one night we sat down with her and explained in detail what a win-win agreement was and how it worked. We asked her to think about it, and we set a time to meet with her the following night to draw up an agreement that all of us could live with.
The next night we all met in the living room and got out our notepads. We first asked her to tell us about her needs. There were many: She needed more freedom, more involvement in high school activities, later curfews, permission to drive with boys, money to attend the dances, extracurricular lessons so she could improve in an area she wanted to try out for, nicer clothes, parents who were more understanding and not so “outdated,” and so on. As we listened, we could tell that these concerns were very important to her at this stage in her life.
We then asked if we could state our concerns—which we did. And we had just as many. We listed things such as acceptable grades, planning for the future, helping out at home, obeying curfews, reading on a regular basis, being nice to her brothers and sisters, and hanging out with kids who had good values and habits.
Naturally, she had objections to many things we brought up. But the fact that we made it a meeting, that we wrote everything down and seemed to be so organized, and that we had the attitude of really wanting to reach a solution that everyone could be happy with, made a deep positive impression on her. We were able to draw up a win-win agreement very quickly, one that involved every aspect of her life. There were gives and takes on both sides. She insisted on signing it and having us sign it, and she has kept it in her room as her contract with us.
Since that evening she has totally relaxed. It’s as though she doesn’t have to prove to anyone anymore that she is getting older and needs new boundaries. There’s no longer a reason to challenge situations and prove her point.
She has referred to the agreement many times since—always because we forgot something we had agreed to. It has given her peace. She knows where she stands. And it impressed her that we were so willing to negotiate, to change, and to try to understand where she’s coming from right now in her life.
A divorced mother shared this experience in developing a win-win agreement with a son on drugs:
My husband and I divorced when our son was sixteen, and this was very hard for him to deal with. He experienced great pain that got him into drugs and other problems.
When I had the opportunity to attend a 7 Habits course, I invited this struggling son to come with me, which he did. This laid the foundation for a major transformation in his life.
At first he actually went further downhill. But he was finally able to use these habits to pull himself up again. Together we developed a win-win agreement. Part of the agreement was that I would help him purchase a car, which he desperately needed, and that he would make the remaining payments. He was in financial difficulties so he couldn’t get a loan, but I would get it. He would also go through drug therapy. We were very specific about five or six issues that needed to be taken care of, and he agreed. He wrote up the agreement, and we signed it. We were both very clear on what needed to happen.
He had been in great despair and facing very difficult challenges, but he became entirely responsible for his past and courageously began to travel down a different road. He honored every single commitment he made. In a three-month period he was able to totally and completely turn his life around.
He is now well employed and is going to the university. He’s the top student in his class. He wants to be a doctor and is back on track, while it had looked before as if he would never reach this goal.
Can you see how, in each of these situations, the agreements nurtured a spirit of win-win in the culture?
Can you also see how these agreements helped build the Emotional Bank Account? They were based on shared understanding. They helped create shared vision. They clarified expectations. They involved commitment. They built trust. And they were a win for everyone involved.
Let the Agreement Govern
One mother shared how a win-win agreement helped her get off her children’s backs and let them learn responsibility:
When our children were small, I had always made sure their clothes were clean, neatly folded, and put away. As they got older, I taught them to sort the laundry and put away their own clothes. But when they reached their early teens, we felt the time had come to give them the stewardship of really being responsible for their own clothes. So at one of our family times just before school started, we talked about it. We decided together what would be a win for them and a win for us. And we set up a win-win clothing agreement.
We agreed that we would provide them with a certain amount of money for a “clothing allowance” each week, transportation for them to buy clothes, and help with clothing repair. In turn they agreed that they would wash, fold, and put away their laundry each week, keep their clothes drawers and closets neat and orderly, and not leave clothes lying around. We set up an “unwanted box” for anything left lying around. Each item put in the box cost twenty-five cents of their clothing allowance to redeem.
We also agreed that every week we would have an accountability session. They would turn in a sheet of paper that listed the allowance they had earned that week by doing chores. Also on the paper was a place for them to check off whether or not they had done their laundry.
The year started out great. We taught them how to use the laundry machines. They were excited about having money to buy their own clothes, and they went through several weeks with clean, folded clothes. But as they became more involved in school activities, they began to miss a week here and there. At one point they were missing more than they were making it happen.
It was a big temptation to nag them about it, and sometimes I did. They were always sorry and always had plans to do better. But after a while I began to realize that I had given them a responsibility and then had taken it back. As long as I was reminding them, it was my problem, not theirs.
So I bit my tongue and let the agreement play itself out. Every week I cheerfully sat down with them and accepted their paper. I paid them the allowance they earned. If they had done their clothes, I gave them their clothing allowance. If not, I didn’t. Week after week they were brought face-to-face with their own performance.
Before long, clothes began to wear out. Shoes got too small. They began to say, “I really need some new clothes!”
“Great!” I said. “You have your clothing allowance. When would you like me to take you shopping?”
The reality suddenly seemed to get through. They realized that some of their choices about the way they were spending their time may not have been the best. But they couldn’t complain. They had helped create the agreement in the first place. It wasn’t long before they began to take a much greater interest in getting their laundry done.
The best thing about this whole experience is that the agreement helped me be calm and let them learn. They chose; they got the consequence. I was loving, I was supportive, but I didn’t get in the way. I wasn’t being pulled apart by “Mom, please get me a new shirt!” or “Can’t we please go to the mall and get some new pants?” The agreement governed. They knew they couldn’t come to me and beg for money for clothes.
Notice how this woman let the win-win agreement govern in the relationship. Can you see how doing that enabled her to be less reactive when problems came up? The agreement gave her a sense of security. It freed her to be more loving and kind when the children had problems because she wasn’t subject to their whims and persuasions.
Can you see how this approach would build the Emotional Bank Account? The relationship didn’t turn into a power struggle because the agreement was in place. This woman was doing what she had agreed to do. She let them learn from the consequences of their choice. And she was free to be loving and sympathetic when they didn’t get the result they wanted.
Notice, too, how this woman was able to teach her children several important principles through this win-win agreement. She had given them the example: They had lived with clean, folded clothes for many years. She gave them the education and training they needed to succeed: She taught them how to sort their laundry and how to use the laundry machines. Then she fixed the responsibility through the agreement and didn’t take it back. She patiently, lovingly let them learn.
The Five Elements of a Win-Win Agreement
Some years ago Sandra and I had an interesting experience that taught us a lot about creating win-win agreements with our children. Probably the most significant thing it taught us is this: You cannot hold people responsible for results if you supervise their methods.
You cannot hold people responsible for results if you supervise their methods.
This story is the most popular story I’ve ever told. In fact, entire conferences put on by different groups have been based on it. As you read this story, notice how the five elements of a win-win agreement—desired results, guidelines, resources, accountability, and consequences—come into play.
Green and Clean
Our little son Stephen had volunteered to take care of the yard. Before I actually gave him the job, I began a thorough training process.
[Notice through the next several paragraphs how we identify the desired results.]
I wanted him to have a clear picture in his mind of what a well-cared-for yard was like, so I took him next door to our neighbor’s. “Look, son,” I said. “See how our neighbor’s yard is green and clean? That’s what we’re after: green and clean. Now come look at our yard. See the mixed colors? That’s not it; that’s not green. Green and clean is what we want. [Notice how we set up the guidelines.] Now how you get it green is up to you. You’re free to do it any way you want except paint it. But I’ll tell you how I’d do it if it were up to me.”
“How would you do it, Dad?”
“I’d turn on the sprinklers. But you may want to use a bucket or a hose, or you can spit all day. It makes no difference to me. All we care about is that the color is green. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Now let’s talk about ‘clean,’ son. Clean means no messes around—no paper, strings, bones, sticks, or anything that messes up the place. I’ll tell you what let’s do. Let’s just clean up half the yard right now and look at the difference.”
So we got out two paper sacks and picked up one side of the yard. “Now let’s look at this side. Look at the other side. See the difference? That’s called clean.”
“Wait!” he called. “I see some paper behind that bush!”
“Oh, good! I didn’t notice that newspaper back there. Good eye, son!
“Now before you decide whether or not you’re going to take the job, let me tell you a few more things—because when you take the job, I don’t do it anymore. It’s your job. It’s called a stewardship. Stewardship means ‘a job with trust.’ I trust you to do the job, to get it done.
“Now who’s going to be your boss?”
“You, Dad?”
“No, not me. You’re the boss. You boss yourself. How do you like Mom and Dad nagging you all the time?”
“I don’t.”
“We don’t like doing it, either. It sometimes causes a bad feeling, doesn’t it? So you boss yourself. [Notice how we make clear what his resources are.] Now guess who your helper is.”
“Who?”
“I am,” I said. “You boss me.”
“I do?”
“That’s right. But my time to help is limited. Sometimes I’m away. But when I’m here, you tell me how I can help. I’ll do anything you want me to do.”
“Okay!”
“Guess who judges you.”
“Who?”
“You judge yourself.”
“I do?”
“That’s right. [Notice the setting up of accountability.] Twice a week the two of us will walk around the yard, and you can show me how it’s coming. How are you going to judge?”
“Green and clean.”
“Right!”
I trained him with those two words for two weeks before I felt he was ready to take the job. Finally, the big day came.
“Is it a deal, son?”
“It’s a deal.”
“What’s the job?”
“Green and clean.”
“What’s green?”
He looked at our yard, which was beginning to look better. Then he pointed next door. “That’s the color of his yard.”
“What’s clean?”
“No messes.”
“Who’s the boss?”
“I am.”
“Who’s your helper?”
“You are, when you have time.”
“Who’s the judge?”
“I am. We’ll walk around two times a week, and I can show you how it’s coming.”
“And what will we look for?”
“Green and clean.”
At that time, I didn’t set up an extrinsic consequence such as an allowance, but focused on helping him understand the intrinsic satisfaction and natural consequences of a job well done. [Notice the recognition and explanation of consequences.]
Two weeks and two words. I thought he was ready.
It was Saturday, and he did nothing. Sunday, nothing. Monday, nothing. As I pulled out of the driveway on my way to work Tuesday, I looked at the yellow, cluttered yard and the hot July sun on its way up. “Surely he’ll do it today,” I thought. I could rationalize Saturday because that was the day we made the agreement. I could rationalize Sunday; Sunday was for other things. But I couldn’t rationalize Monday. And now it was Tuesday. Certainly he’d do it today. It was summertime. What else did he have to do?
All day I could hardly wait to return home to see what happened. As I rounded the corner, I was met with the same picture I had left that morning. And there was my son at the park across the street playing.
This was not acceptable. I was upset and disillusioned by his performance after two weeks of training and all those commitments. We had a lot of effort, pride, and money invested in the yard, and I could see it going down the drain. Besides, my neighbor’s yard was manicured and beautiful, and the situation was beginning to get embarrassing.
I was ready to go back to being the boss. “Son, you get over here and pick up this garbage right now or else!” I knew I could get the golden egg that way. But what about the goose? What would happen to his internal commitment?
So I faked a smile and yelled across the street, “Hi, son. How’s it going?”
“Fine!” he returned.
“How’s the yard coming?” I knew the minute I said it I had broken our agreement. That’s not the way we had set up an accounting. That’s not what we had agreed.
So he felt justified in breaking it, too. “Fine, Dad.”
I bit my tongue and waited until after dinner. Then I said, “Son, let’s do as we agreed. Let’s walk around the yard together, and you can show me how it’s going in your stewardship.”
As we started out the door, his chin began to quiver. Tears welled up in his eyes, and by the time we got out to the middle of the yard, he was whimpering.
“It’s so hard, Dad!”
What’s so hard? I thought to myself. You haven’t done a single thing! But I knew what was hard—self-management, self-supervision. So I said, “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Would you, Dad?” he sniffed.
“What was our agreement?”
“You said you’d help me if you had time.”
“I have time.”
So he ran into the house and came back with two sacks. He handed me one. “Will you pick that stuff up?” He pointed to the garbage from Saturday night’s barbecue. “It makes me sick!”
So I did. I did exactly what he asked me to do. And that was when he signed the agreement in his heart. It became his yard, his stewardship.
He only asked for help two or three more times that entire summer. He took care of that yard. He kept it greener and cleaner than it had ever been under my stewardship. He even reprimanded his brothers and sisters if they left so much as a gum wrapper on the lawn.
It was hard to live by the agreement we had created! But I learned the power of doing it—and the power of a win-win agreement that has the five elements in it. The fact is, you’re going to deal with these five elements sooner or later. If you don’t choose to do it in leadership time up front, you do it in crisis management time down the road:
“Oh, was that what I was supposed to do? I didn’t understand.”
“Well, why didn’t you tell me I wasn’t supposed to do it that way?”
“I didn’t know where the instructions were.”
“You never said I had to have it done by today.”
“What do you mean I can’t go out tonight? You never said anything about not being able to go out if I didn’t get it done. Sharon didn’t get her work done, and you let her go out!”
At the beginning it will probably seem as if the five elements take a lot of time to set up. And they usually do. But it is far more effective to invest the time early on rather than deal with the consequences of not doing it later on.
The “Big Picture”—the Key to Thinking Win-Win
Obviously, to think win-win is at the heart of what “family” is all about. But as I said at the beginning of this chapter, when you’re caught up in the emotion and the behavior of the moment, it can be incredibly hard to do. And so that pause between what happens to us and our response becomes vitally important.
In our own family life Sandra and I have found that the greatest single key to living Habit 4 is to use that pause to connect with the “big picture.”
Several years ago Sandra covered the walls in our family room from floor to ceiling with pictures of the family at all stages of their lives. There are family pictures of our fathers, mothers, grandparents, and great-grandparents: black-and-white pictures taken just after our wedding, baby and school pictures of our nine children taken through the years, pictures of them with no teeth, with freckles, with zits and braces, high school pictures, college pictures, mission pictures, and wedding pictures. There are family group photos and a grandchildren’s wall. There are even pictures of me from years ago when I had hair!
Sandra wanted to create this family wall covering because she wanted all the family members to see one another as she saw them. When she looked at our thirty-three-year-old married son with four children, for example, in her mind she would also see this same son as a four-year-old boy coming inside to get comfort and a Band-Aid for a scraped knee. She would see him as a twelve-year-old facing his fears on the first day of junior high. She would see him as a seventeen-year-old quarterback fighting to rally his courage after a first-half championship game defeat, as a nineteen-year-old leaving home to spend two years in a foreign country, as a twenty-three-year old embracing his new bride, as a twenty-four-year-old holding his first child.
You see, to Sandra there is so much more to everyone in the family than what anyone can see at any given moment in time. And she wanted to communicate that, to involve others so that they could appreciate this vision she had of the people she loves.
Sandra:
It’s been wonderful seeing how everyone who comes to our house is immediately drawn to the picture wall. They notice family resemblances and point out how one of the grandchildren looks exactly like his mother or father used to look. Our children and grandchildren always flock to it.
“Oh, I remember that pink dress—it was my favorite!”
“Wasn’t your mother pretty?”
“See, I had to wear braces, too.”
“This picture was taken of our team when we won the state football championship.”
“That’s the formal I wore when I was Boys’ Day Queen.”
Our sons were thrilled when I snapped a picture of them on the boat dock after they had had their muscles pumped up by water skiing. I made it into a large poster and gave it to them for Christmas. They come in and point it out proudly to their sons.
“See how muscular I was?”
And there they are with tan, bronzed bodies—muscles rippling in the sun.
“That’s your dad there,” they tell their children. “I lifted weights for three years to look like that!”
Whenever I think of my children, I don’t think of how they look and act today. I’m flooded with memories of familiar expressions they used, favorite outfits they wore. Baby, toddler, preschool, teen, young adult—all these images flash before my mind as I see the finished product before me. I remember the ages and stages, the looks, laughter, tears, failures, and triumphs.
A glance at this picture wall is like having your whole life flash before you in a few seconds. I’m flooded with memories, nostalgia, pride, joy, and renewal. Life goes on, and it’s so wonderful. We have lots of scrapbooks, and I enjoy those, too. But this is our family—our life—all around me. And I love it.
I have often wished we could expand that wall to include pictures of the future as well—to see ourselves, our spouses, and our children ten, twenty, even fifty years down the road. How mind and heart expanding it would be if we could see the challenges they will face, the character strength they will develop, the contributions they will make! And what a difference it would make in our interactions with each other if we could see beyond the behavior of the moment—if we could treat everyone in the family from the perspective of all they have been and all that we can help them become, as well as whatever they may happen to be doing at any given moment.
To act on that kind of vision—instead of on the emotion or the behavior of the moment—makes all the difference in parenting. Take a jugular issue such as disciplining a child, for example. One of the most valuable things Sandra and I have learned as a result of “big picture” thinking is the difference between punishment and discipline. Perhaps I can illustrate with the common practice of sending a child to a “time-out” room.
Many people use a “time-out” room as a place to send a misbehaving child until he or she settles down. How this time-out room is used clearly represents the distinction between punishment and discipline. Punishment would be saying to the child, “Okay, you’ve got to go into the time-out room for thirty minutes.” Discipline would be saying, “Okay, you need to go into the time-out room until you decide to live by what we agreed.” Whether the child stays in the room for one minute or one hour doesn’t matter, as long as the child has exercised the necessary proactivity to make the right choice.
For example, if a son clearly misbehaves, then he needs to go into the time-out room until he makes up his mind to do otherwise. If he comes out and continually misbehaves, then that means he hasn’t made up his mind, so that issue would have to be discussed. But the point is that you’re showing respect and affirming that he has the power to choose the behavior that is consistent with the principles in the agreement. Discipline is not emotional. It’s handled in a very direct and matter-of-fact way, carrying out the consequences agreed to beforehand.
Whenever a child misbehaves, it’s important to remember Habit 2 (Begin with the end in mind) and to be clear about exactly what it is you’re trying to do. Your end in mind as a parent is to help the child learn and grow, to nurture a responsible person. The objective of discipline is to help the child develop internal discipline—the capacity to make right choices even when there are influences to do otherwise.
In light of that, one of the most important things you can do is involve Habit 1 (Be proactive) on the child’s level and affirm his or her capacity to be “responseable.” Make it clear that the issue is the behavior, not the child. Affirm, rather than deny, the child’s ability to make choices. You can also help children improve their ability to make good choices by encouraging them to keep a personal journal. In that way they strengthen their own unique human gifts by observing their own involvement and educating their conscience. You can also use Habit 4 to come up with win-win agreements regarding rules and consequences in advance.
Sandra and I find that when our children experience this kind of discipline, they have a whole different spirit about them. Their energy is focused on dealing with their own conscience instead of with us. They become more open and teachable. And often, discipline actually builds the Emotional Bank Account. There’s good will in the relationship rather than rejection and harshness. Children may still make bad choices, but they come to trust the sense of dependability and stability in principles and in a principle-centered home environment.
The ability to see the “big picture” makes an enormous difference in every family interaction. Perhaps when all of us look at the members of our family (including ourselves), we ought to envision everyone wearing a T-shirt that says, “Be patient; I’m not finished yet.” And we ought always to assume good faith. By acting on the assumption that others are trying to do their best as they see it, we can exert a powerful influence in bringing out the best in them.
If we can always see each other as constantly changing and growing and acting in good faith—and if we can keep our destination, the end, in mind—we’ll have the motivation and the commitment it takes to always go for win-win.
SHARING THIS CHAPTER WITH ADULTS AND TEENS
Learning to Think “Win-Win”
• Discuss the arm wrestling demonstration here. Why is the win-win way of arm wrestling and thinking so much better for family relationships?
• Discuss how one person with a win-win attitude can change a situation.
• Ask family members: Why is internal contention more destructive to the family than the turbulent pressures from outside?
Interdependence Is the Goal
• Ask family members: What needs to happen for family members to be able to work together to come up with solutions that are better than any one family member could come up with alone? How would the “one question, one commitment” idea be helpful?
• Discuss the consequences of win-lose and lose-win thinking. Ask: Can you think of any situation in which either of these alternatives would work better than win-win?
Moving from “Me” to “We”
• Review the funeral story here as an example of how a very sensitive situation was turned into a win-win for everybody by one man with a vision and a plan. Discuss how you can develop and model a win-win attitude and behavior in some situation in your life.
• Talk about the difference between a “scarcity” and an “abundance” mentality as described here. Identify a situation in which an abundance mentality would benefit your family. Try to use abundance thinking for a week. Talk over the difference it makes in your family culture.
Developing Win-Win Agreements with Family Members
• Discuss the stories in this chapter that deal with the development of family win-win agreements (here). Talk about the difference these agreements make for children and for parents. Try creating a win-win agreement with another family member. Live with it for a week. Discuss the benefits and challenges.
• Discuss the difference between discipline and punishment. Ask: How can we discipline without punishing?
• Discuss what it means to see the big picture. When a family member is being disagreeable, how can seeing beyond the behavior of the moment help you think win-win?
SHARING THIS CHAPTER WITH CHILDREN
Enough for Everyone
• Enjoy an afternoon in the sun with your children. Go to a place such as the beach, the park, or the mountains and talk with them about how wonderful the sun is and how there is enough for everyone. Point out that it doesn’t take anything away from the sun whether one or one million people are enjoying it. There is an abundance of sunshine, just as there is an abundance of love. Loving one person doesn’t mean you cannot love other people as well.
• Play a game. Tell the children that this time, “winning” means it’s got to be a win for everyone. Decide on some new rules which say that being kind and considerate to the other players is more important than getting the most points. See what happens. Children might decide to give up a turn now and then, share the game money or candy, go for a team score, or offer advice on how to make a better move. After the game, have them discuss how helping everyone win made them feel. Help them to understand that the world has room for lots of winners.
• Invite the family to a ball game and explain on the way that the plan is for everyone to take note of the “best” they see on the playing field—best play, best teamwork, best sportsmanship, best coordination—not only from the team they’re rooting for, but also from the opposing team. After the game, compare notes and have them point out all the good things they observed. Ask family members to share their insights and feelings.
• Share the story about the two young brothers who had such a competitive relationship that they couldn’t enjoy being together. Discuss how the win-win approach they developed could help in solving any similar problems you might have between your children.
• Select an issue that has created a struggle between you and your children. It could be something such as getting a swingset they want badly, visiting an amusement park, or doing something you’re not sure you want them to do. Sit down and discuss it. Lay all cards on the table. Determine what would constitute a win for each person involved and try to come up with a true win-win solution. Discuss together how you feel when the solution is reached.
• Choose areas in your family life that need additional cooperation, teamwork and better attitudes. Write each one on a note and put them all in a hat. Have the children draw the notes out of the hat one at a time, and explain what they would do to make that situation a win for everyone.