7 Habits: Habit 4 - Think Win/Win

posted at 09:00:00 GMT By Flipping Heck!

Posted In Motivation

This post has been viewed 112 times

This is the habit of creating effective interpersonal leadership. In order to manage our relationships with others properly we need to think "Win/Win". This isn't just a technique that you can apply to every day situations and relationships, it's a philosophy - a whole way of thinking and being.

This philosophy is based on 6 paradigms of interaction. Basically, every time we interact with others it fits into one of these categories:

• Win/Win
  
• Win/Lose
  
• Lose/Win
  
• Lose/Lose
  
• Win
  
• Win/Win or No Deal

Let's look at each of these types of interactions as Covey describes them:

Win/Win - Mutually beneficial and co-operative. All parties come out on top

Win/Lose - "If I win, you lose." This is very authoritarian in style and can be seen as overaly competitive. It' a win at all costs mentality which is usually instilled from childhood.

Lose/Win - "If I lose, you win." This is usually the attitude of people who want to keep the peace and not upset the applecart. The problem with Lose/Win is that whilst you may feel happy your friend/colleague etc. has come out on top, this can however lead to an eventual breakdown in relationships as resentment builds up.

Lose/Lose - This happens when two Win/Lose people clash, it leads to a stubborn impasse as they try to beat each other at all costs.

Win - Don't really want anyone to lose they just want everyone to come out on top. It's an "every man for himself" mentality.

Win/WIn or No Deal - This is where, if a mutally beneficial outcome cannot be reached, then you know it's okay to walk away with no hard feelings.

What's the best option?

The best option really depends on what situation you are in at the time, what you want to achieve, and what the other person wants to achieve.

If you value a relationship, you may opt for Lose/Win in order to keep the peace. If you want to increase competition (in your salesforce for example) you may go for a Win/Lose strategy.

In an interdependant relationship, Win/Lose doesn't work. If I Win I will make you feel bad which leads to a withdrawl from my emotional bank account. The same goes for Lose/WIn - I stop caring about you because you don't care - and Lose/Lose - we both make withdrawls from each others accounts. The only viable option is Win/Win, or Win/Win/No Deal.

How do you achieve a Win/Win situation?

The are 5 "dimensions" (as Covey calls them) to achieving a Win/Win situation, which each build up on each other to form effective interpersonal leadership:

So character builds relationships, which leads to an agreement within an agreed system and manner of process. Note that in the diagram above an agreement is required before you decide on the system and processes. This leads back to the habit of putting first things first - if you don't know what you want then you can't achieve it.

Covey uses a great analogy regarding creating agreements:

Systems need to exist in order to allow a Win/Win situation to take place. If you think Win/Win but the system rewards Win/Lose then everyone loses faith and the system collapses. Reward systems need to be aligned with the goals and beliefs of the organisations.

All systems need to be Win/Win if this is the goal of the organisation. You can't just rely on the rewards system motivating employees to think Win/Win, you need to include planning, communiction strategy, budgeting, training - every aspect of the organisation needs to be thinking the same way.

Covey also notes that if you put good people into a bad system you get bad results, the whole path to a Win/Win situation is built from the ground up on the 5 dimensions, you can't ignore one and hope the others fall into place.

What have I learned from this habit?

I've learned that it's not what I want from a situation, it's more about what others want. We can never reach a mutually acceptable solution if we don't know what each other wants to get out of it.

I've also learned that it's okay to walk away from a situation - assuming that the other party is okay with this - you don't lose face and it enables you to revisit the situaiton further down the road with no animosity.

What am I going to do about it?

I need to ask myself and others what they want from a situation - and of course, being the proactive person I now am, I can do that!

I need to know also, to walk away from a situation when it's starting to look like Win/Lose, Lose/Win or Lose/Lose. I need to understand that it doesn't make me look bad, it's a No Deal situation that will only end in resentment from one, or both parties. I think the terms is "agree to disagree". Fingers crossed that I can keep to this one, I have to admit I'm a Win/Lose kind of girl!

Interested in this book? Buy the 7 Habits of highly effective people from Amazon today

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UK Firms failing to train staff

posted at 09:00:00 GMT By Flipping Heck!

Posted In Business

This post has been viewed 179 times

An article on the BBC website states that 1 in 3 firms aren't bothering to train their staff and not only that, they missed out on £15 million (approx $29.6 million) free funding from the governement for their staff so they didn't even have to shell out any money in the first place!


Companies are often bemoaning the fact that their staff are useless and inadequate in their jobs and yet fail to train them using their owen budget or government funding.

Quite often, especially with the financial constraints that are being placed on business, training is the only reward that employees get and it's a shame that they (well at least a third of them anyway) are obviously missing out.

Companies need to realise that money isn't the only thing that keeps us working for them - it's respect and an opportunity to improve too.

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What have you done to Gmail, Google??

posted at 09:00:00 GMT By Flipping Heck!

Posted In Rants

This post has been viewed 342 times

<start rant>

I've written before that I'm having issues with using Gmail over IMAP with Entourage and judging from the comments I'm not the only one (can't link to the commentor as they didn't leave a URL!) and now I'm having issues with the regular GMail web interface as well.

Originally I thought it was because of a dodgy extension I was running that was causing GMail to hang every time I clicked on a label but as it's happened on 4 different machines now I don't think an extension is the issue. I'm getting really fed up of having to force quit and restart Firefox every time I initially log in and click on something.

Seeing as I don't use the keyboard shortcuts, when I noticed they'd added a "basic html" version I though "Great, I'll use that one" but, guess what happens. Yes, GMail crashes FireFox when I click the link. Not only that, when I do get the basic html version up, Google never remembers that's my preference so I have to go through the same rigmarole every time I fire up the website.

I've written before about how I like to keep my emails organised in a neat folder structure rather than dumping them in a free-for-all archive or keep them in my inbox and I'm really struggling to do this with GMail IMAP access - or just even the  plain web interface.

The only alternative I can see (without changing my email address again is reverting back to Pop3 email which works, but it's a pain in the **** as I work on so many different computers and I want them to be sync'd.

People rave all the time about how great GMail is but I'm just finding it frustrating. Then when you factor in the privacy issues I wonder why I bother at all. Maybe I should have stuck with my 10 year old Hotmail account instead (although their interface leaves a lot to be desired and I don't think they support IMAP in a free account).

I'm not asking for much (I don't think at least), all I want to do is to be able to manage my emails in a sensible way.

I hate to say it, but you don't get this issue with Microsoft Exchange Server!

</end rant>

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8 Tips for Saving Money and Your Life (Bankaholic.com)

posted at 09:00:00 GMT By Flipping Heck!

Posted In Life Hacks

This post has been viewed 291 times

I've been pointed in the direction of an article entitled "8 Tips for Saving Money and Your Life" Over at the Bankaholic blog which I thought I'd share with you.

There's some good little tidbits there (although I disagree with point one massively - cough, cough!) such as wearing sensible shoes and avoiding Junk Food.

In these days of the credit crunch, as a famous supermarket chain says every little helps.

I'd like to add one more point to the list:

9. Ditch the gym membership - Whilst you may think you're doing yourself a favour, think how much you're spending on the gym. Most of the equipment there can be accessed at local leisure centres (and even hotels) at a fraction of the cost. Plus, if you've got a bike why not use it instead of sitting on the one in the gym and not actually going anywhere?!

How about you? Do you have any money saving and fitness inducing tips for us? Let us know in the comments

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7 Habits: The Public Victory Phase

posted at 09:00:00 GMT By Flipping Heck!

Posted In Motivation

This post has been viewed 334 times

Covey takes a break from the 7 habits and introduces a new phase, one of "Public Victory" where we move from our first 3 habits of Private Victory in to the 4 habits of public victory.

The Public Phase is one where we move from our newly formed independant selves into "interdependant" people; we learn to trust and rely on people, build relationships and become trustworthy and reliable ourselves. He states:

In the first three habits, we learned to become masters of ourselves, to know our destinies and priorities and with these in place, we can now move into the "Public" phase and start building meaningful relationships with others - whether that be friends, colleagues, spouses or children.

The main thrust of becoming truly interdependant is that we need to be true to  ourselves (our character ethic) rather than to be superficial (our personality ethic). People can see right through superficiality and will lose all respect for us.

In order to be interdependant, we need to have mastered the following skills from the first three habits:

• Be proactive
• Be centered in the correct principles
• Be value Driven
• Be organised and action-based

Only when we have fully mastered the above core habits can we then start to move into our public interdependant phase, a quick-fix "band-aid" approach won't work - and in the end could prove damaging to the relationships you're trying to build.

The Emotional Bank Account

In order to be interdependant, Covey tells us to look at our "Emotional Bank Account". This is where we build up captial (or expenditure) for use in our dealings with other people. In order to put a deposit in we need to be kind, keep our word, act with courtesy and honesty etc. If we act the opposite i.e. break promises, are insensitive etc. this leads us to make a withdrawal and too many of those can make us overdrawn.

The more you have in your emotional bank account, the more respect you will engender. People will be willing to help you, trust you and work with you and you will feel better for it.

If you're emotionally overdrawn, there'll be little or no trust, you'll feel uncomfortable and end up in a hostile environment with a general lack of communication.

Covey backs up his emotional bank account analogy with 6 forms of deposits (although he does list 7 - is that a typo?) that can be made into it:

1. Understanding the individual - You need to do this before you try to deposit anything else. You need to understand what the person needs and wants not just what you want.
   
   
2. Attend to the little things - in relationships, the little things can snowball to become big things. Just a simple "Hello" and a smile every morning to a co-worker can say more than a thousand words.
3. 
   
4. Keep Commitments - As my mum used to say, never make a promise you can't keep. But, there are odd occasions when we truly can't keep a promise so, in order to stop a major emotional withdrawal happening let the person know why and that you're sorry. Being honest will go a long way.
   
   
5. Clarify your expectations - What do they expect from this, not just what you expect. If they're at odds then a satisfactory conclusion will never be reached
   
   
6. Show personality integrity - This goes beyond just keeping promises, it's fulfilling and managing expectations and going the extra "mile". This is also about showing general loyalty to people, especially those not around (i.e. don't slag them off just because they can't hear you - remember the walls have ears!)
   
   
7. Apologise when making a withdrawl - Sometimes we can't help break a promise or hurt someone's feelings so you need to bite the bullet and be man (or woman) enough to apologise - and mean it!

What I learned from this chapter

It was quite nice to take a break from the overall habit structure and I like Covey's analogy of an emotional bank account. I've started to think a bit more about whether I am making a "withdrawal" or a "deposit" and it's certainly lead me to be "depositing" a lot more!

What am I going to do about it?

I'm going to keep trying with this "Emotional Bank Account", taking particular note of other people's needs. I'm also going to try to ensure that I keep all my promises - even if that means not making the ones I don't think I can keep (is that cheating?!)

Interested in this book? Buy the 7 Habits of highly effective peoplefrom Amazon today

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Spending a penny costs a packet

posted at 15:00:00 GMT By Flipping Heck!

Posted In Business

This post has been viewed 369 times

I just read an article on the BBC website which caught my eye  - which isn't suprising as it's headlined "Row over firm's toilet break rule".

The issue us that workers aren't being paid to use the toilet, they have to clock on and off when they want to have a comfort break:

The factory manufactures (or packages, the article isn't that clear) food for a major UK supermarket chain so I can understand that it's awkward trying to preserve health and hygene regulations (hence the 10 minute loo break I guess!) but just because it takes that long (which it has to if all legal obligaitons are to be observed) doesn't mean that the staff should be penalised surely?

If you think about it, say you went an average of 3 times a day (and remember my maths is really bad so I'm probably going to work this out all wrong):

• Average number of working days per year: 260 (I read that figure somewhere!)
• Number of bog breaks a year: 780 (260 x 3)
• Time spent going to the toilet: 7800 minutes or 130 hours
• Minimum wage: £5.73/hour (October 2008 rates I think)
• Total lost by employee: £744.90

I can understand that the company will argue that the shouldn't pay for any time not worked, but when you look at the breakdown above, it's surprising that the workers haven't risen up in mutiny against these archaic working conditions, £744 to a person on minimum wage is a huge amount of money to lose just because nature calls.

If it were me, I'd be looking for another job.

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The Ten Worst Excuses for being late to work

posted at 09:00:00 GMT By Flipping Heck!

Posted In Motivation

This post has been viewed 431 times

An article at CNN.com discusses the "10 best excuses for coming to work late":


Personally, I think companies are far too rigid in terms of time requirements and would probably find that the work force is happier and more productive it they allowed staff flexible hours and telecommuting opportunities but if you're late to work (like I normally am), the CNN article highlights the excuses to avoid. To think that some people actually tried to get away with some of these:

3. I had to go audition for American Idol.

My next excuse when I'm late is going to be "I have transient amnesia and couldn't remember my job."

Oops! Maybe I shouldn't have blogged that!

Hat tip to Management Issues for pointing me in the direction of the article

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