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?

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.

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."

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."