When you join a company, you start learning new things. Some of the areas you learn in are connected with the technical skills you need, others are more connected with culture and approach to others, third group is more oriented to the communication style in the company etc.
If your company has set a developing culture mindset one of the things you will hear is when having conversation with a colleague, client, partner etc. always to rely on the win-win approach.
But when someone tells you that you expect this person to take time to explain it to you. In most cases you will hear something in sort of:” You know, this is a situation where both sides feel like winners”.
Good explanation, but in most companies, this is the end of the conversation and you will have to guess how this magical win-win approach really happens.
Well here I’m offering you a brief explanation that may help you to successfully build your own win-win approach.
Let us focus only on WIN
You use this approach when creating your objectives or goals, in your relationship with others, maybe even in your personal life.
Creating your own WIN is a process with some very important steps like setting and objective, defining how you will measure success and least, but not last, defining what resources you will need to accomplish the objective.
Simply said WIN looks like this:
1. W – you set your objective/goal, or what you WANT to achieve.
To set this objective or goal try thinking in a positive way. It is always better to focus on what can be a solution in the current situation, instead of focusing on problem or what has to be avoided.
A typical example, formulated as an objective, is: “Lower the number of customer complaints with xxx%”.
Re-formulating this objective in a positive and growth approach will help you to focus on what to improve, instead of thinking what to avoid.
A re-formulated objective or goal will look like this: “Increase customer satisfaction with xxx%”
Bonus tip 1: When formulating what you WANT, formulate it as specific solution that you can influence.
Bonus tip 2: Formulating an objective, which accomplishment you cannot influence, makes this objective a failure for you.
2.I – this represents the evidences you will need to say that your objective is completed successfully. It is what you IMAGINE as a key result for achievement. When having this key result in your mind you can easily plan for success.
In the light of the example above your imagined result can look like: “Increase customer satisfaction with xxx% compared to the previous quarter/or same quarter last year.”
The percentage here is what you imagine as a successfully achieved goal. Having this imagination clear gives you the freedom to plan and organize your activities better.
To have your WANT, supported by your IMAGINE you must formulate what and how many evidences will prove objective or goal completion, how will other understand that the objective has been successfully completed. Together with that you should also work on how to make the objective motivational (think of the level of phrases positiveness) and what is the real achievable level for the objective.
For the level of achievable objective or goal, you must think in the terms of SIZE. To achieve your objective or goal you must structure it so that it can challenge you, but not make you think you have lost control, or are lost in the process of executing the plan on the objective.
3. N – the last letter here comes to explain what the resources are you will NEED to achieve the objective or goal you’ve set.
When thinking of N you have to think in terms of assets and time.
Your needed resources must include skills, knowledge, relationships, competencies, values, money etc.
Together with all those resources you must plan your next step, your timeline for the objective and your milestones in the process.
To check if you are on the right track you can make a quick check if you have ensured all what you need to complete the objective or goal. This simple check is closed in the question: What will be the purpose of completing the objective?
The answer here must give you clarity on what are the gains and the loses and how achieving the objective can affect your integrity in the team. If you don’t get all the answers, then you must roll back the process of creating your objectives to ensure them.
Having in mind all this can help you structure your personal WIN
W – WANT IT
I- IMAGINE IT (PROVE IT)
N – NEED IT
IN CONCLUSION:
If as a person you can structure your WIN then the only thing you will need to do is to align it with the other people you interact with. Aligning your objectives and showing what is positive for you and for the other people around you will give you the opportunity to further build on your objectives by helping other people to integrate to your plans and you integrate your priorities to their plans. That is how a WIN-WIN solution looks like.
Are you ready to create one?…
The Human place 