All couples have differences. Fortunately, differences needn't lead either to fighting or to giving up on what you want. There's no need to compromise either.
Here's equally good news. The same strategy for talking through problems that works between two people works also for inner dialogue between two parts of yourself when one side of you wants one plan of action and the other prefers an alternative.
Compromises leave both sides feeling compromised. If you want to live in San Francisco and I want to live in New York, settling in Kansas City will leave us both unhappy. While occasional problems do lend themselves to a meet-in-the-middle or split-the-difference compromise solution, compromise in most instances is a lose-lose strategy.
Compromises are problematic as well for decisions between two sides of yourself, like between what you feel you should do and what you really want. If you love two different potential partners, taking have of one and half of the other surely will not work.
By contrast, skills for finding win-win solutions to differences enable folks to emerge from disagreements with both partners feeling like the agreed-upon plan of action is as at least as good and often even better than what they initially thought they wanted to do. That's true for conflicts at home, and for resolving differences in work situations as well.
Here's a quick example. Janie phones Bill just before leaving work to say that she wants to go out for supper. Bill wants to stay home.
Instead of engaging or a tug of war, or either of them caving in to the other, Janie and Bill each put their underlying concerns on the table. Janie says that she has been working long hours and feels too exhausted to cook. She also has a yen for lush green salad with lots of fixings, and their refrigerator is empty. Bill wants to watch his favorite team on TV and none of the restaurants they like have a TV screen. Besides, salads leave him hungry.
Bill then proposes a win-win solution. "How about if I stop at the grocery store on the way home, the one with a big salad bar, and pick up big salads for us to eat together when I get home? I'll add a hearty soup for me, a bread we can warm in the oven, and a few fried chicken legs. I'm glad to clean up the kitchen after supper too; I can watch the TV from the sink."
Bill's plan was responsive to all his concerns, and all the concerns of his wife as well.
What's the secret to finding win-win solutions? Rather than insisting from the outset on your initial solution or suggested plan of action, clarify both your and your partner's underlying concerns and design a solution that satisfies these.
Begin by noticing any time you feel a tug of war emerging. Any time that each of you is pulling for a different plan of action, switch immediately from arguing in favor or against particular action plans to verbalizing each of your underlying concerns.
Once the two of you have succeeded in generating a full list of all of your underlying concerns, generating win-win solutions can be creative and fun.
Use the Worksheet below to guide you to solutions that please you both. For further help, check out PowerOfTwoMarriage.com. Also, remember that this same workshop can be useful for fostering win-win solution-building for your solo inner conflicts.
Note: Be sure to list all the concerns of both participants on one list, indicating that any concern of one of you immediately becomes a shared concern of both of you.
STEP 3: CREATE a WIN-WIN SOLUTION, responsive to all the concerns
Start by identifying the most strongly felt concerns, building the plan initially around the most strongly felt concerns.
Add enhancements until all the concerns are responded to.
Suggest only what you yourself might be willing to do.
Express appreciation of what the other offers
Add additional concerns that each proposed solution may raise, and create solution options responsive to these concerns as well.
Aim to build a solution set, a comprehensive solution
Circle back one more time: have all the concerns been responded to in the plan of action? Add further details to the plan as needed.
In sum, WIN-WIN means that the plan of action has elements responsive to all of the concerns of both of you. While neither of you may have "gotten your way" with regard to you initial solution ideas, both of you will have succeeded in getting what you wanted!
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Susan Heitler, PhD, a Denver Clinical psychologist, is author of multiple publications including From Conflict to Resolution and The Power of Two. A graduate of Harvard and NYU, Dr. Heitler's most recent project is a marriage skills website, PowerOfTwoMarriage.com.
Susan Heitler, Ph.D., is the author of many books, including From Conflict to Resolution and The Power of Two. She is a graduate of Harvard University and New York University.
