As we strive to honour our (widely shared) values of integrity, authenticity, honesty, we often feel we cannot give in, be flexible in adhering to those values without significant loss. We’re also told that compromising is bad, an expedient acceptance of standards that are lower than is desirable or according to the Cambridge Dictionary : “to allow your principles to be less strong or your standards or morals to be lower“. That last meaning is only a recent evolution though, the result of Victorian moral fundamentalism absent from the latin root. Interestingly, other languages have a separate word for that meaning (French: “compromission” which is not the same as “compromis”).
“to allow your principles to be less strong or your standards or morals to be lower” – Cambridge Dictionnary
Today we see some of the more extreme consequences of this belief in the political debate around us, with devastating social, economic, environmental and perhaps even health consequences for our world. Such is the price of lack of compromise.
I feel bound to contribute my voice as a coach to this very current conversation: as co-active coaches we believe EVERY human being to be naturally creative, resourceful and whole. By whole, we mean unbroken, capable of self healing if need be. If this is to be so, especially in matters of opinion, your opinion is just as valuable as mine: I am not, nor are you, more whole than one another.
Take many of the situations you encounter in your life as a professional, a parent, a student, in fact anywhere you interact with others, you will find a satisfactory way forward is not in convincing others that your “solution” is the better one. Once that happens, you will quickly find that the cost of winning takes away much of the sweet taste of victory.
The Manichean sect is long gone even if its central belief in a world split between good and evil endures. Against this, there is a very long tradition, based on experience and abundant research, of team work whether in business, education, government and even in the basic social unit of the family. Team work relies on compromise : team members rarely end up with the role they wanted or felt they deserved initially, yet the team unit regularly produces better results than any of the individual team members could come up with on their own.
The central mechanism for this over performance is compromise, practiced at every step of the way. In business, I have experienced and do believe that a good deal is one where both parties feel like they’ve given too much to the other side. Brilliant, successful negotiation, business or not, draws on our innermost creativity to imagine and build new pathways to a station no one originally believed even existed.
Now can you see how that creativity, that human intelligence actually turns out to be quite sublime in overcoming obstacles and achieving common good ? Quite the opposite of the intellectually facile labelling of compromise as an expedient, lowering of standards which is what we commonly hear in the current public conversation.
Don’t take my words too literally, just ask yourself:
When and how can I compromise for a positive outcome ?
What would happen to the values I hold as a result of that compromise ?
What other values might I honour or adopt as a result ?
