Hey there! Here’s one leadership idea and one resource I’ve found beneficial this week:
1 idea: Winning the wrong game
During my first year of marriage, my wife and I decided to play Settlers of Catan. Catan is technically a 3-4 player game, but I figured we could make do with just the two of us. I was wrong.
If you’ve ever played Catan, you know that a major part of the game is trading with other players. Any trade with another player is technically benefiting your enemy, but because you have several “frenemies” to choose from, you can usually find an enemy of your enemy to trade with. As I soon realized however, this is not true in a two-player game. With only one partner to choose from, any trade directly benefited my enemy and consequently disadvantaged me.
During our first game, I played nice. I traded when Emily wanted to trade, and we got along nicely. But thanks in part to my generous trade decisions, Emily defeated me. And I didn’t like losing.
We played again a few days later, and I had a new strategy: I would only trade if the terms were ideal for me and terrible for Emily. I gained an early lead in the game and was determined to preserve it. Any trade requests from Emily were met with a flat no or with terrible terms. As we slowly marched toward my inevitable victory over the next hour, the temperature in the room got colder and colder with each turn. Finally, the game concluded with my decisive win—and we were both miserable.
I took two lessons away from that evening. First, never play Catan with less than three people. Second, I need to ensure I’m not winning the wrong game.
The obvious game we were playing that night was a strategic board game. James Carse would call this a finite game. It had a clear beginning and end with specific rules and roles. But there was also another game that I played (and lost) that evening: building a better relationship with my wife. Carse would call this an infinite game. The game never ends, roles change, and rules are unclear. Unlike finite games, the goal isn’t to win these games—it’s to keep the mutually beneficial game going. In our case, that meant having fun and building memories with my new bride.
If someone would have asked me, “Hey, would you like to fight with your wife for an hour so that you’re both miserable at the end of the night?” I would be bewildered as to why they even bothered to ask. Yet that was the exact route I had unconsciously chosen that evening. My competitiveness took over, and I won the wrong game.
The implications of this idea go far beyond date nights with your partner. At any given moment, we should ask ourselves, “What games am I playing? And am I winning the right ones?”
Am I winning at work but losing at home?
Am I winning in image management but losing at reality management?
Am I winning financially but losing spiritually?
Am I winning arguments but losing relationships?
As D.L. Moody put it, “Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at something that doesn't really matter.”
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Which games are you playing right now?
Which ones are you winning that don’t ultimately matter?
Which ones are you losing that really do matter?
1 resource: Don't say these words
When we're in an argument, it's easy to default to playing the finite game (win at all costs) rather than the infinite game (find truth and strengthen the relationship). As a result, we say things that aren't true or helpful and end up losing the most important game.
This highly practical article from Harvard Business Review spells out words and phrases you should avoid using during conflict. Following this guidance will help reduce the temperature of your disagreements and help them be more productive conversations.
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