The “Win-Win” Scenario: The Beauty Behind the Cliché

Sometimes a phrase becomes popular because it represents a really good idea. And then it becomes so common that people begin to subtly change its meaning to fit their own understanding or their own needs – and it becomes so overused that it ends up as a cliché. It can even become so trite that it gets lampooned, ending up as the topic of comedy sketch or a symbol of the latest slick, corporate, heartless strategy. Such is the case with “win-win.”

However, just as with many clichés, this phrase represents a powerful concept. And this one carries with it profound implications for our lives.

To fully appreciate it, we first need to look at its opposite: the zero-sum game. In such a game, one person or team wins (that is represented as +1) and one person or team loses (-1). Add those numbers together, and you get zero. Now, you can’t take this too literally; a basketball team can win by 50 points, for instance. But the point here is that there is a win, and there is a loss. One team wins, and one loses. You can’t have two winners, and you can’t have two losers.

Okay, some sports have matches that can end in a draw! But that’s the exception to the rule, and no one is satisfied when that happens. THAT is really the point here: everyone is disappointed when there is not one winner and one loser. It feels incomplete; it feels like wasted effort. And that’s because our brains are conditioned to want a tidy zero sum at the end.

This idea has been around since the dawn of humanity. The story of Cain and Abel is perhaps the first zero-sum game on record: one winner, one loser. Everything from small skirmishes to full-out wars have been fought based on this premise. If you have the right to use that water source, I do not. If my people inhabit this land, yours cannot.

I saw a commercial recently for modern-day gold miners, and one of the series’ stars said, “There can only be one king.” My immediate thought was, “No, that’s not true.” That’s just an assumption humanity has repeated over and over until we rarely question it.

A zero-sum mentality is borne of two elements: the fear of scarcity and the ego. The fear of scarcity seems quite real. Are we not continually told that we lack adequate resources to care for the people of the world? Here’s an example that’s more personal: If someone else buys the last carton of milk, then there is none for me. Or, if I give away my last bit of food to someone in need, there won’t be any food left for me. That seems to make sense, right? Until we remember that God is exceptionally good at miracles, at making something out of nothing, or out of very little. A certain incident with loaves and fishes comes to mind…

That’s a whole blog post in itself, and I understand the potential “But what about…?” arguments that might arise. Let’s leave that for another day and go on to the other element undergirding zero-sum scenarios: ego. Back to the miner’s comment: “There can only be one king.” Well, why do you WANT to be king? Why isn’t it enough to collect the gold you find and move on? It’s because the ego (the personality) wants us to be the best at something—anything—to prove that we are worthy of the love and affirmation we all so desperately crave yet are convinced we don’t deserve.

So, to prove that I am the best at something, I have to be better than someone else, or than many others. Yet God calls us to the radical idea that we are already utterly beloved, that there is nothing we need to do—in fact, nothing we can do—to earn that love. We can’t earn the “bragging rights” of having displaced someone else to gain God’s affection. We don’t need to prove ourselves.

When I was researching this post, I saw next to “win-win scenario” this phrase: abundance mentality. Is that not the exact opposite of a scarcity mentality? Abundance is the assumption that underlies the win-win scenario. Here, there is not one winner and one loser. There are individuals or teams working together toward a common goal. There is no need to dominate. No one needs to be the king, or the queen, or the winner. Trust in the God of abundant love and abundant provision sets us free from the need to compete. Then we can focus on caring for and serving each other.

That’s what I call a win-win.

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