I’ve recently completed seven online negotiation courses, including from Yale, MGSM, the University of Michigan and others.  The win-win mantra was everywhere with presenters telling students to “always aim for a win-win outcome”, or better still a “win-win-win outcome”, whatever that means.  The phrase ‘win-win’ has become synonymous with what a ‘good’ negotiation should deliver — but does it?

I confess I’ve always been allergic to the phrase win-win.  I don't think it’s meaningful or particularly helpful.   The lack of clarity around what win-win represents can lead to poor outcomes and a win-win mindset can even be dangerous in some cases.

At the risk of argument dilution, here are my top five reasons for discarding the win-win mantra.

1)    For starters, not every negotiation can be win-win.  If you have to negotiate someone’s redundancy, it’s hard to see how this might be described as a ‘win’ for someone losing their livelihood and a job they love, even if there is compensation.

2)    Not every negotiation needs to be win-win.  In some cases, there is little point in striving for a win-win outcome.  When you are negotiating the purchase of a new TV from your local electrical retailer, I suspect you are not much concerned about making sure the salesperson feels good about the deal, gets their full bonus and that the store makes a healthy margin.  Forget win-win!  Your chief concern here is to walk away with the best deal for the TV you want.  It’s not your job to look after their margins.

3)    Win-win says nothing about the quality of the deal.  Win-win in practical terms is defined by the absence of a win-lose outcome — that’s really not good enough.  On the scale of possible outcomes, you’ll get to win-win long before you get to the best possible outcome for both sides.  The temptation is to stop at the basic win-win, when that is really the starting point for negotiating an outstanding outcome for both sides.

4)    Win-win is what you make it. The term ‘win-win’ could describe an outstandingly and mutually beneficial agreement, but so often it does not.  Especially in protracted negotiations, I’ve observed that negotiators have simply had enough and “I guess we can live with that” closes the deal.  Because there is rarely an objective measure of what win-win actually means, the win-win label can be used to legitimise ‘barely good enough’ deals and disguise poor preparation, bad time management or a lack of skill and patience at the table.

5)    Win-win thinking can make you vulnerable to sharks.  This is probably the most dangerous aspect of a win-win mindset.  Because the idea of win-win is so seductive, sharp negotiators are using this to prey on others who have been conditioned to always ‘look for the win-win’, to ‘grow the pie’ and to ‘make sure the other side also wins’ because ‘we’re in this together’.  Unless you have negotiation skills, you’ll be working hard to grow the pie, only for the other side to take the lion’s share.

A procurement executive once defined win–win to me as:
“They let me win one and then I take the other one.”

There was a fashion some time ago to by retailers to award some of their ‘best’ suppliers with win-win trophies.  These were usually in recognition of having been pounded by the retail buyers to within an inch of win-lose, but because it could be argued that the deal was just over the line, let’s call it win-win.  After all, we’ll keep selling your products at healthy margins and you’ll get a shiny trophy for your efforts to make that possible.  Jonathan Barrett’s headline in the Guardian (16 Mar 2024) summarised it succinctly: “Farmers paid too little, shoppers charged too much – it’s a win-win for Australia’s supermarkets.”

These are my top five reasons for discarding the nebulous concept of win-win.

Rather than worrying about win-win, I suggest you prepare to execute a flexible and agile negotiation.   Engage with the other side’s demands and turn them into opportunities to create value.  Whether you are dealing with sharks or cooperative negotiators, negotiation skill, process and discipline will deliver outstanding and sustainable outcomes — and that is the ultimate objective.

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