Equitus clients are people who are able to commit to a plan of action that will enable them to become financially successful and in this respect have many of the habits that Robert Covey describes in his book “The 7 Habits of Effective People.” Perhaps one of the best known terms from this book “win/win” is now commonly used to describe solutions to problems that are of mutual benefit to all parties. The result of such a solution is that all parties feel good and become committed to a plan of action.

Unfortunately many people tend to think in terms of win/lose. This is because most societies measure excellence on the basis of comparison; for instance sporting excellence is based on the idea that the winner takes all and that everyone else in the race is, in effect, a loser. Even our legal system is adversarial but defensive minds are neither creative nor co-operative. Lastly at a more personal level people’s experience of love is often conditional which means it can be withdrawn if it does not met someone else’s expectations. If things are conditional however, they cannot be value based.

In this light, win/lose does not sound very productive but lose/win is even more counter-productive. This is because Lose/Win has no standards, makes no demands, has no expectations and consequently no vision. Lose/win people desire acceptance at any cost even if it means finishing last. This means they must repress their feelings rather than transcending them and suppressed emotion tends to mean that people are inclined to react to minor provocations and for the most part are cynical or angry or both.

It is clear therefore that both win/lose and lose/win are weak positions and are based on personal insecurities. Lose/lose, if it occurs at all, is the result of two win/lose people in contest with one another. Both would rather lose than capitulate. Lose/Lose is adversarial in the extreme and takes conflict to the level of total war and, strangely, is the behaviour of highly dependent persons.

In reality what is best must be judged according to the situation. The best choice depends on not transposing the wrong script onto the situation but reading the reality accurately so the best possible outcome can occur.