In which Wolf explains that if you try sometimes, you get what you need. Watch this episode on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/oxFlYdpGMuA
When you’re having a conflict with someone, you’re both likely to be focused on what you’re saying you want, and what the other party is saying they want. I want to stay home and you want to go out. Or I want to focus on making a deadline, while you want to focus on delivering a quality work product. In each case, the apparent conflict arises because both parties actually agree on something: they agree that they can’t have both of these things. And, they’re probably right.
In the world of logic, we talk of The Law of Noncontradiction. The law says that a thing cannot simultaneously and in every sense be what it is, and also something it’s not. Sounds pretty obvious when you put it that way, right? You can’t have a “letter A” that is simultaneously also a “letter B,” or a circle that is simultaneously also a square.
Conflicts appear at first glance to be trying to make a “square circle.” But since that makes no sense we’re forced to decide between a square and a circle. And without any further context, that’s what we have to do.
If I want a square and you want a circle, then we’re stating what we want, but not why. Recall that in the previous video I said that without a common objective, there isn’t any conflict, and that with a common objective, there is a deeper harmony to be found in any relationship. You can think of your immediate wants as somehow “pointing back” at that common objective.
Here’s the secret: get in the habit of asking this magical question:
“Why do I want what I want that also serves our common objective?”
You might be able to come up with all sorts of justifications for why you want what you want, and your partner is likely able to do the same. But the way you narrow this down is to remember that your common objective is both what unites you and what makes apparent conflict possible. All the reasons that you want what you want that don’t serve the common objective truly don’t matter, and if they do matter to you more than the common objective, then you should consider that maybe you don’t really have a common objective at all!
So focus on connecting your want to the common objective by stating your need. The need is why you want. Say two business partners are debating advertising expenses.
The first says, “We need to spend more money on advertising so we can increase our sales revenue.”
The second says, “We need to not spend more money on advertising because we need to control costs.”
Obviously they can’t both increase their ad spend and not increase their ad spend. But these are their stated wants. If you look at their needs, why they want what they want, we see that one is focused on increasing sales revenue, while the other is focused on controlling costs. These are both good things for a business, and in fact necessary to have a profitable company. And that’s their common objective: to have a profitable company.
In the case of two spouses, one might say “I don’t want to go out tonight because I need to be rested for work in the morning.”
The other might say, “I want to go out tonight because we haven’t had a date night for a long time.”
Again, they can’t go out and not go out. But check out their needs: being rested for work, and having date nights. Those things aren’t inherently in conflict at all, because they’re both necessary to support the common objective: having a great relationship.
So that’s the trick. Don’t get hung up on what you both want: start to focus on what you each need that serves your common objective.
But what do you think? Let me know in the comments, and if you found this valuable, give the video a like: It definitely helps the YouTube algorithm find other people who would like it too. See you tomorrow!