The Five Elements of a Win-Win Agreement

You cannot hold people responsible for results if you supervise their methods.

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.

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!"