In order for Common Sense Systems to be successful, we must have a good relationship with our clients. This requirement gives rise to two subordinate requirements, or "necessary conditions."

Our first necessary condition is that our clients must be well-served:

In order to have a successful business we must ensure that our
clients are well-served.

Does this sound reasonable to you?

Of course, there are businesses for which this seems not to be a necessary condition. Perhaps you have encountered businesses that couldn't care less whether you are happy with their service or not.

In my view, those businesses are at increased risk, but let's ignore those businesses for now. In reality, for most businesses, maintaining a high level of customer satisfaction is an absolutely necessary condition for business success.

Our second, absolutely necessary condition is that we must earn our clients' trust and respect:

In order to have a successful business, we must ensure that we
earn our clients' trust and respect.

Does this necessary condition apply to your own business?

I can't think of many businesses that go out of their way to avoid earning the trust and respect of their customers. Most businesses spend heavily to communicate positive messages to their customers or potential customers. Would they do this if they didn't place a high value on having the trust and respect of their customers?

Graphically, this is the situation I have described so far:

At this point, you may be asking yourself "So? Where is the dilemma? What prevents you from ensuring that your clients are well-served AND earning their trust and respect at the same time? In fact, it seems that if you do serve your clients well, you will earn their trust and respect."

You are, of course, correct. There is no dilemma -- no conflict -- yet.

The dilemma appears only when we go to the next step -- determining the actions that are necessary in order to bring the necessary conditions into existence.

You see, in our business, in order to ensure that our clients are well-served we must recommend that they "seek win-win solutions."

Unfortunately, most people view win-win as something of a cliché -- something that is a pleasant fantasy ("Wouldn't it be nice to live in a world ....") -- but not as something that is truly practical.

In short, most of our experiences have taught us that, in the real-world, win-win doesn't exist. We have come to believe that the best we can do is to learn how to become excellent compromisers. (Footnote: When we succeed in becoming excellent compromisers, what is it that we are excellent in compromising?)

And so, this is the final element of my dilemma. In order to earn the trust and respect of our clients, we must NOT recommend that they "seek win-win solutions."  Because, if we do, we risk being viewed as out-of-touch, head-in-the-clouds, let's-have-a-group-hug consultants.

That's just not us.

So, to complete the picture begun above, my business dilemma now looks like this:

Now, in my experience -- and perhaps yours -- when I perceive a problem it can mean only one thing. I have made an assumption -- or a whole group of them -- and at least one of them is wrong!

To resolve my dilemma in a win-win manner I must find a way that will allow me to ensure that both of the conditions necessary (but not sufficient) for having a good relationship with our clients is met.

Finding such a way always begins with "surfacing" the assumptions I am making. To surface an assumption means to identify it and move it from something of which I am only dimly aware (if that) to the point where I am fully aware of it.

In this case, after surfacing my assumptions, I need to take the next logical step: consider which assumptions might be false, or might be made false by certain actions on my part.

When I did this, I hit on the following assumption, which exists "behind" the C - D' arrow:

We cannot fully address our client's skepticism when it comes
to our recommendation that they 'Seek win-win.'

Perhaps that assumption is false.  Perhaps we CAN address that skepticism.  Graphically, then, my solution for resolving this dilemma starts by challenging the assumption:

What this means is this: If we can succeed in addressing the deep skepticism that people hold with respect to seeking win-win solutions, then this obstacle to achieving our two necessary conditions will be completely removed.

As you might expect, addressing this deep skepticism is not easy.  But, it is possible.

In fact, this article itself is a small part of the solution we have crafted for addressing the deep skepticism that many people hold with respect to seeking win-win solutions.

If you would like to read more about our solution for eradicating the belief that seeking win-win is somehow infeasible, you can do so.   As we publish additional articles on this website we will reveal more and more of our solution.  You can also contact us to learn more about bringing the education and training to your organization that will help you and your team craft real win-win solutions to your serious problems.