Win Win Situation

A situation in which each participant can benefit without anyone having to lose. In contrast to a Zero Sum Game.

This metaphor is from game theory. In the majority of new business interactions it is possible to identify a way in which every participant is better off, otherwise there is little incentive to modify the existing approach.

However many business people treat any situation as though it were a Zero Sum Game and focus on ensuring they end up "ahead of" all the other participants. This usually ensures that the benefits are lower than they would be and are not equitably distributed. This type of behaviour leads to a situation where all the participants end up worse off. No one will adopt a different approach because that would benefit another party more than themselves, even though it would deliver benefits to them.

Links to this page

The following pages link to here: Game Theory, Metaphor, Zero Sum Game