Win-Win strategies create opportunities that cannot survive in an environment of competition. Those extra opportunities produce abundance for everyone.

My company and a competitor received separate government contracts to develop solutions for a research problem.  During Phase I, we both demonstrated the viability and value of our respective technical approaches, which were quite different.  We offered an over-arching architecture, while our competitor designed several innovative data processing tools.  We felt that we would win the Phase II contract, a contract ten times larger than Phase I, because we saw architecture as more important than tools.  Our competitor, of course, felt the opposite.  The Phase II contract award was delayed for months as our companies competed like two scarcity dragons to determine who would win.

Eventually, we discovered the client liked both Phase I approaches and could not decide which to pick for Phase II.  Win-win thinking tamed the dragon that blocked us both from reaching our goal. Viewing opportunity as abundant, we teamed with our competitor and broke the logjam by submitting a joint proposal.  The new contract was awarded in two weeks.  We gave our former competitor a substantial subcontract to develop the processing tools.  It was win-win-win-win: the client won, we won, our competitor won, and you won as a taxpayer.

When we abandoned our win-lose strategy, both companies won. Following that award, a synergistic relationship grew which enabled us to pursue other opportunities that neither company could perform alone.  Working together with an attitude of abundance, we added to each other in synergy rather than subtracting from each other in competition.