One of the most insightful books I ever read was Stephen R Covey's "The Third Alternative" In it Stephen points out how so much our scripting in life comes from a two alternative paradigm. You win, I lose, I'm right, you're wrong, my point of view is right, yours wrong, getting my idea accepted over yours is important to me, Competition not collaboration.
This permeates our life and in many areas shows a tendency to strengthen - look at our political system or that of the US where collaboration is at an all time low - and both the UK and US Government have become almost inert.
How about meetings your are involved in internally? When suggestions are made, how often does it come down to a competition between ideas, rather than an exploration? How often do we miss the opportunity to really understand the other persons point of view before we put our own forward? How deeply do we actually listen in a genuine attempt to understand how they arrived at their thinking?
And this same behaviour, when we work with Clients, is often exacerbated by the need to 'win' the deal. Now getting our idea accepted has a tangible result - so we push our view hard, defend it to the hilt, try to 'overcome objections' and 'close the deal.'
The result of all this behaviour is confrontation, competition or at best compromise, and often we lose the opportunity to win something even better than we might have imagined on our own.
So this two alternative scripting is holding us back - and the first step is to stop competing, and start understanding, especially when the stakes are high.
I can fully understand that you have a view of what should happen when you make a proposal: you want them to buy into it, you want their order, but actually this creates the fear of failure which means that any suggestion from the Client that they don't accept your proposal is an affront or challenge.
Try a new idea.
Rather than seeing a challenge, see an opportunity to explore. If they don't see it your way, how do they see it? And how did they come to that conclusion? What experience or evidence do they have which makes them hold their beliefs about the problem or its solution?
If you are truly able to put your position aside for just a little while to really listen to your Clients you might find a number of alternatives
1)They have a different viewpoint which informs your thinking and makes you change your mind about what's needed
2)In talking about their experience you are able to help frame your ideas in a way that allows them to see how they are actually aligned
3)Their different viewpoint sparks new ideas that you can share with your Client and lead to a third and better alternative that neither of you had previously considered.
The power in this idea is to understand that all 3 of these outcomes are great, and they build Trust, - and that the third alternative is far more likely than you may have expected. And when it happens the outcomes for you and your Client can be spectacular.
So the next time you feel challenged either internally or with a Client I have a suggestion. Take a deep breath, remind yourself that collaboration beats competition and say:
"Hey, you seem to see it differently to me. I would love to take some time to really understand your point of view, and how you arrived at it."
What could you possibly lose?