“Clients and the devil win
Page 130. “Clients and the devil win. Learn to nurse your most valuable relationships in a win-win atmosphere. A lot has been written and spoken about the philosophy of win-win. In our experience, most of it is just surface talk. When one is essentially a philosophy of how you live your life. In business when one means having a genuine concern for the other person, that they win as much as you do, whether it’s a sale, employee contract, negotiations or strategic alliance.
— from Friends, Community & Society (Relationships/Community/Society)
In the book
Run. Their constant negativity will drain the life right out of you. Then keep the good ones well. The best relationships are win-win — built on a real concern that the other person win as much as you do, not just in business but in friendship and love. Stay curious: the deepest reason long-married couples and old friends drift into feeling unheard is that they simply lose their curiosity about each other, so make a point of staying a kind of permanent researcher in your closest relationships. […] Choose your circle. Run, do not walk, from toxic people; stop trying to win over the unsupportive; and for the people who matter, ask whether you like, trust, and respect them. Keep the good ones. Stay curious about them; play win-win, wanting them to win as much as you do; and keep a few friends honest enough to challenge your thinking. Work at love. Treat marriage as continual work, not a finish line; insist on both truth and tenderness; and aim for the love in which you can be fully yourself. — Friends, Community & Society (Relationships/Community/Society)