A short transcript of Simon Sinek describing how pre-setting a cooperative mindset transforms conflict resolution in personal relationships and business. He recounts an argument with his ex-girlfriend where he changed the rules mid-fight—each person listing their mistakes and the other’s strengths—which quickly de-escalated the conflict. He argues that mindset must be determined in calm times so that during tension one can pursue resolution (us vs. the problem) and negotiate for mutual wins rather than extraction.
Chapters
My now ex girlfriend, we were having a fight, and the fight went something like this. Here's what I did right, and here's what you did wrong. And the response was, well, here's what I did right and here's what you did wrong. To which the response was, here's two things I did right and three things you did wrong. And you see how this goes.
And one thing I've learned about business and relationships is mindset matters. And you can't set your mindset in the time of tension right. For the same reason you can't figure out the strategy out of a problem in the middle of the problem, you kind of want to thought about it a little bit before. So if you look like the 2008 financial crisis, the embarrassing part about that is the housing market. Nobody had thought about the 1% chance of the housing market collapsing. What would we do? And so the only option we had was to figure out in the middle of the panic, and what you get is a shit solution.
And so mindset is everything. And knowing your mindset prepares you for everything. And the mindset that we had in our relationship, which was predetermined in happy times, was when we fight, let's agree that it'll be not you versus me, it'll be us versus the problem. Let's agree that we will fight not to win. We will fight to get to resolution. And we used to talk about it all the time, hey, let's fight to get to resolution. Mindset was set. So in the thick of it, you forget the strategy. In the thick of it, you're angry, you're triggered, you're personal, although you say all the worst things. And all it takes is one person to remember the deal we made. And in this particular case, it was me. And I literally interrupted this fight. And I said, new rules, new rules. I'm changing the rules. Instead of what we're doing right now, I'm going to tell you what I did wrong and what you did right. And then it'll be your turn, and I'll start. I said, here's what I screwed up and here's what you got right. And she said, yeah, well, here's what I got wrong and here's what you got right. We were friends. In two minutes, we were hugging. And what we came to realize is the other person was trying to Right? And I think it's. And it turned around the anger. And I think the same is in business. The number of times we go into a negotiation to extract, we go into a negotiation to get at the expense of and you're not going to win or do well in that negotiation. You might get something in the short term, but the long term implications are are not in your favor. And the strategy, the mindset of saying I will run my business.
With the strategy of ensuring that everyone we do business with.
Comes out winning us and them, and we will always negotiate so that both parties win. And if that's your M.O. the way you negotiate, the way you interact with people is profoundly different than when you have an extractive point of view. So to me, some of the greatest turnarounds are I think the things I learned in my personal relationships that I bring to work because once again, I'm talking to people and sometimes I disagree with those people and sometimes those people piss me off. And sometimes you just go down the list. It's just people.
