The "Problem People in Organizations" discussion seems to have embraced
"Win-Win" and "Win-Lose" as descriptions of possible courses of action for
dealing with a Problem Person on a team or in a group. I think that,
while this has been a very interesting and useful discussion, it would be
useful to expand the discussion a little to examine the "Win - Win or No
Deal" approach.
If I may be allowed to oversimplify in the pursuit of brevity:
Win - Win, in the context of "Problem People in Organizations", could be
broadly defined as "somehow" a solution is found for involving the problem
person in the group and achieving consensus. This is obviously desirable,
but can be extraordinarily difficult or perhaps even impossible.
Win - Lose, on the other hand, is working around the problem person. In
effect, the group wins (= achieves consensus?) while the problem
individual loses, i.e. is removed from the group for practical purposes or
perhaps even literally. The people who have argued for the occasional
need to adopt a Win - Lose approach seem to tacitly admit that it is
undesirable, but sometimes necessary.
The "Win - Win or No Deal" approach is discussed in the seminal Win - Win
book "Getting to Yes" and is dealt with at some length in Steven Covey's
writings, notably "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People."
Win - Win or No Deal is most realistic at the beginning of a relationship,
e.g. when a team is being formed or a project is being initiated. To
quote Covey: "No Deal basically means that if we can't find a solution
that would benefit us both, we agree to disagree agreeably - No Deal. No
expectations have been created, no performance contracts established. . .
It is so much better to realize this up front instead of downstream when
expectations have been created and both parties have been disillusioned."
In a team environment, I would argue that this means getting commitment to
all the teams goals (not just the "official" goals) and to at least an
outline of the team's methods up front. If anyone cannot commit to the
all of the goals and to at least to an outline of the methods, it is time
to either try again to reach agreement on the goals/methods or to
acknowledge that the composition of the team is wrong.
I do not offer this as a panacea ("No Deal" is a lot easier to talk about
than to implement), but I think that a good effort at clarifying goals and
methods at the beginning of a project can be the "ounce of prevention"
that is worth more than a "pound of cure," in the form of efforts to
restore or achieve team unity, when a project is well underway.
Regards,
Robert Lucadello
RLucadello@aol.com
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