Habit 4: Think win/win

In human relationship, the best outcome is win-win. It is different from win/lose where you take advantage of the other side, or from lose/win where you give up to the other side. The win-win solution requires us to treat human relationship as collaboration instead of competition.

It takes compassion to want others to win. It takes courage and assertiveness to want ourselves to win. If we can consistently practice these two sets of characters, we will create a richer life for us and others.

A win-win outcome depends on several factors: (1) Emotional bank account. You have built trust in another person by consistently give help, respect and appreciation. (2) Clear communication. All expectations are stated open, on the table, and be understood by all parties.

Covey talked about a remarkable story where a corporate training program shrank from 6 month to 5 weeks, and results were much better. This is all about setting clear expectations, clear reward, and enable the trainee to define their own ways to achieve their goal. It’s a 5-step process:

1. Desired results;
2. Guidelines (Qualify results with certain parameters);
3. Resources;
4. Accountability: performance standard and ways of evaluation;
5. Consequences: reward structure.

When all these steps are in place, we can motivate people to achieve remarkable things.

Habit 3: First things first

The rule is simple: Put your energy on things that are most important to you. In other words, work from your priority list and always start with item #1.

Why don’t people follow this simple rule? One reason is that they have not thought through their priorities. It seems to them all the tasks are equally important. This makes people feel overwhelmed. To overcome this problem, we have to step back. It is absolutely crucial to identify our major goal and our priority. We have to look at a larger picture, to have perspective before we can move on. “But I am so caught up with my tasks,” a business owner may protest. This is not an excuse. Running business without priority set will lead to low performance and ultimate failure. If you don’t have a priority list, create it now. Don’t move until you have such a list.

Another situation is that people know what is important, but they feel the task is too difficult. A thesis that requires a lot of research, a phone call that requires a lot of courage, or a meeting that requires a lot of preparation are such examples. Many people dive into distraction in order to avoid the task: movies, chatting, surfing, playing games, or anything that can get their minds off the task. This is so-called “procrastination” syndrome. To over this problem, we need to break the task into small and easy-to-do chunks. The task doesn’t have to be fun. As long as it is easy, you will most likely do it. Once you get into a routine, the task is so effortless that you think it is fun. For me, I successfully started running in this way. Running 2 miles seems so hard to begin, but I tell myself: I will just run 10 steps, and then another 10 steps. Now I run 3 miles a day without much difficulty.

The best solution to alway adhering to “first things first” is having clear visions. When we visualize our goals, we get motivated and will not forget our priorities. Given that our goals are so vivid, working on our priority list becomes exciting. We feel fulfilled along the way.

In the chapter, Covey all discussed how to be an effective leader. This comes down to 5 steps:

1. Create desire results. Such results are shared between the leader and the follower
2. Create guidelines. Think through the basic standard that has to preserved when achieving the goal. Point out failure path (what not to do). But give people the responsibility of figuring out “what to do”.
3. Resources. Discuss resources that exist and the person can draw on.
4. Accountability: Discuss and agree on criteria for evaluation
5. Consequences: Specify reward and penalty for different results.

Covey applied the above steps to manage his son’s yard cleaning task. His son felt so proud and did an excellent job.