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Win/win is familiar to many school board members as a popular technique for collective bargaining. Indeed, win/win, as a way to do labor negotiations, has converts and advocates all around Illinois. Many boards have come to see an adversarial approach to contract negotiations as detrimental to the main objective of schools: quality education for students. Further, some boards that have tried the win/win negotiation process have found it propelling them toward significant educational reform. Teacher organizations also are attracted to the win/win model.

A number of the districts who helped form the Illinois based Consortium For Educational Change (CEC) were inspired to come together when they realized, "if this collaborative style makes sense for negotiations, why don't we find ways to work collaboratively all of the time, not just when we are negotiating"? Steven Covey would say this is learning to think win/win.

Stephen Covey's popularization of the seven habits helps boards to see that thinking win/win has a much broader application than simply a technique or desired outcome for contract negotiations. To quote Covey: "Win/win is a frame of mind and heart that constantly seeks mutual benefit in all human interaction. One person's success is not achieved at the expense or exclusion of the success of others. It's not your way, or my way; it's a better way or a higher way" (page 207*).

What might it mean for a board to practice win/win thinking? Covey outlines six competing "paradigms" of human interaction presented here as hypothetical school board scenarios:

1) Win/Win. Many boards do not feel they need to enter contract negotiations with the assumption that one side will win and the other will lose. If one begins with the assumption that teachers, administration and board all have the same end in mind (quality public education), then contract negotiations take on a whole new ethos. Both sides are looking for a win - and make the assumption that it can happen without a loss on the other side.

2) Win/Lose. The board is eager to cut its costs. It finds it can save $50,000 a year by contracting out custodial services. Eight long-term custodial employees are dismissed and the board ends up very happy with its new contracted services. The board wins, but the employees lose. (If the dismissals damage staff morale, the board may ultimately lose as well.)

3) Lose/Win. Over months of research and conversation, the board and staff have come to see the middle school concept as a significant educational opportunity. The community, locked into a "neighborhood school" concept rises up in opposition. The board shelves its good thinking and energizing ideas. The opponents win, but in the end, everyone loses.

4) Lose/Lose. The board is mightily concerned about safety, drugs and discipline in its schools. It establishes tough, zero-tolerance policies - and over the next year, finds itself increasingly preoccupied with suspension and expulsion hearings. Without adequate support services in the community, the hearings have no easy resolution. Board members find it psychologically and educationally hard to function in a context where so much time is spent in hearings where there appear to be no winners.

5) Win. The board is aware of an on-going state and local level discussion of fair and equitable school funding options. Rather than getting engaged with the local community and their state legislators, they simply evaluate each proposal by a single criterion: "What will it mean to us?" If any particular proposal increases their district funding, they support it. They simply want to win, without regard for the outcome for anyone else.

6) Win/Win Or No Deal. Board members who think "win/win or no deal" as they go about a superintendent search will approach the task as an effort to come together around a single candidate. Any given board member might not get his or her first (or even second) choice. But together, these members know leadership is a corporate and mutual enterprise. Finding "the right" candidate is less important than working together with each other and with the new superintendent. The search ends with each participant feeling that everyone won and the district is poised to move forward. In some situations, win/win or no deal means that the two parties agree to disagree.

A board that "thinks win/win" is always seeking for all parties to achieve their ends - and, if possible, will keep searching until that goal is achieved.

Abundance Mentality

According to Covey, those who would practice win/win must be persons of character. Such persons Covey says, exhibits integrity and maturity (see Habits 1 through 3) and possesses "the abundance mentality". Education is a prime example of an arena where "there is plenty out there for everyone" (page 216*). In any given class or in any given school, all students can grow and learn to the benefit of all others. In fact, it's often true that the more one student learns, the more all his or her student colleagues will profit.

Unfortunately, board members are typically deeply scripted by the scarcity mentality: In order for me to have won a board seat, someone else likely lost. From the early days of our own schooling, teachers who "graded on the curve" taught us there can only be so many A's and that these must be offset by a comparable number of F's. Our litigious society is obsessed with legal winners and losers. Our era of shrinking and inadequate financial resources pits one social good against another. Part of the job of the board is to set priorities: to decide which good ideas get done and which are passed by.

Perhaps boards can learn from their high school cross country teams. While many team sports define and redefine winning and loosing in appropriate ways, we feel cross country teams may have a special lesson for school boards. While not every cross country runner can come in first, every member of the team can win -- simply completing a two or three mile run is a significant personal victory. And each member of the team can contribute to a team victory by doing their part, meeting or beating their own personal best. Typically, because of abundance mentality, cross country meets have an unusually supportive and affirming aura about them. While not unique, cross country is an example of how abundance thinking can serve those who exhibit it -- and those around them.

Some board members may be skeptical. Life involves many areas where some win and some lose. But Covey is suggesting there may not be as many as we think.

The wise and effective board will always think win/win, and, just as importantly, establish the relationships, agreements, systems, and processes that support their win/win thinking. Those who live win/win know that the processes which support win/win are key. Ends and means are inexorably tied together. We need to structure our lives in ways that allow for win/win relationships and agreements to be supported and upheld. For Covey, thinking about means and processes which support win/win creates a ready link to his next two habits. There is a tremendous need to seek understanding and the synergy that comes from rock bottom communication. But the first step is to build a foundation by thinking win/win.

All page numbers refer to The Seven Habits of High Effective People, Steven Covey, 1989.

JOHN CASSEL, JOHN ALLEN and ANGELA PEIFER are field services directors with the Illinois Association of School Boards.