The habit this week I will be working on is Think Win-Win. Effective leaders examine how they interact with others. You need to take the time to find common ground with everyone you work with and cooperate with them. This needs to be done with everyone, including people that have differing viewpoints than yours. If you focus on relationships and how to make them mutually beneficial for everyone involved, you will foster a win-win relationship. It isn’t about each person getting exactly what they want or about compromising. It is about working together to have both of your needs met by coming up with a better way of doing things that work for both parties.
There are four types of relationships that can be established with others. The first is a competitive relationship in which there is always a winner and a loser called win-lose. This type of relationship does not foster growth and the people involved do not support each other. It will be a constant battle between the people involved to always be on top. This breeds disloyalty and people become uncomfortable around each other. The second type of relationship is lose-lose in which everyone involved does not want the other to win and it becomes a dysfunctional, downward spiral where no one wins. The third type of relationship is lose-win in which one person lets the other person win in an attempt to foster a relationship and be liked. This does not work, however, and the person who “loses” ends up becoming a doormat. Lastly, the fourth type of relationship is a win-win relationship in which both parties work together so as not to get one person’s way or the other’s way, but come up with a better way in which everyone’s needs are met. This relationship focuses on cooperation instead of competition and everyone benefits from the relationship.
This habit really struck a chord with me this week. I am constantly focused on establishing healthy and beneficial relationships with my colleagues. I believe having good relationships with your coworkers is one of the most motivating forces at a school. However, in most work relationships I’ve experienced, I have not seen many win-win situations. Many teachers are competitive and are driven to be the best or better than others. I think this is due to the pressure of test scores and needing to constantly improve student scores to be considered effective teachers. Nevertheless, in our profession, competition doesn’t do anyone any favors. If there are winners and losers, people are not be motivated by the right cause to help students. If teachers are motivated by getting better test scores than others, and in turn are not sharing ideas or lessons, schools suffer. This does not foster lasting, supportive relationships between teachers.
Recently my school had a meeting to go over our test scores from the recently released Smarter Balanced results. We were provided with a page listing each grade level’s percentages of students that met or exceeded standards, almost met standards or were below standards. This page also compared each grade level to the district and state percentages for each category. In this meeting, teachers began congratulating specific grade levels for their test scores. I became extremely uncomfortable. Test scores are not about winners and losers. Although it appears teachers are being supportive by complimenting other teachers, I could feel the competition amongst the teachers growing. This is not how I would have run this meeting. I’m not entirely sure how to go about discussing data without having people compare or compete with each other. This is something I am hoping to learn. However, any type of conversation in which only certain teachers are receiving praise is not the best way to go about it.
I am constantly functioning from a win-win viewpoint when working with others. I want to have long-lasting, functional, supportive relationships. I want to work on a team that is like a well-oiled machine instead of disjointed parts attempted to beat each other. Creating a win-win situation with all members of my team is a goal that I really hope to achieve. I do my best to support, encourage, and cooperate with everyone I work with. However, working with others who do not share the same viewpoint makes this difficult. A win-win relationship requires effort from both parties. Without it, the right relationship will not be established. I’ve caught myself falling into the lose-win situation with others because I’d rather let the other person win if they are competitive than fight them over it. In turn, it appears that I am a doormat. This is a constant struggle that I have. I feel that so many teachers are competitive and establishing cooperative relationships with competitive teachers goes nowhere. This is something I am extremely passionate about and I would love to learn more. I would love to know the steps you can take to show others how competition is not beneficial in a school setting. I want to know how to show others that cooperative relationships are so much more beneficial for all involved.
I have two new team members this year who are new to teaching and I see the competitive mentality already taking over. It breaks my heart. I am working extremely hard to put effort into our team development and foster a win-win mentality, but with outside pressures I see them retreating and our team is suffering. They do not think about how we can support each other and look out for each other to create a supportive team. They do not think ahead or share their ideas. Instead, they are doing things on their own and not asking for help or advice. I’m the only member who constantly communicates, shares, asks questions and looks out for the team. Watching this happen has me worried. All I can do is continue to put effort into our relationship, cooperate, share, support and work to establish a team that wants to help each other succeed instead of just being better than each other.