An amazing thing occurred in the recent French elections. After the first round of voting, the third-place centrist-left candidates dropped out and asked “their” voters to support the other centrist-left candidate. That’s how the center-left overwhelmed the far-right candidates. Yes, the third-place people stayed committed to their principles but did not stay attached to their positions.
France can do that because—by design—it uses a two-round voting system. This system allows multiple parties to compete for voters in the first round and then see who gets through the second and final round. This is opposite from the US primary system because the primaries eliminate many candidates early so we have just two remaining candidates.
The US reinforces party commitment, which is often a commitment to several positions in the form of one candidate. In contrast, the French system allows for commitment to principles, not positions (or party).
Most of us choose principle over position in our personal lives when the stakes are low. For example, two people might have the “what do you want for dinner” conversation. Both people agree on the principle that eating dinner is good. If Person A has a specific position, Person B might well agree if Person B does not object to Person A’s position. Both people are committed but not attached.
What happens when we both get attached to positions? Too often, we forget about our principles. We need to recognize when we have a position instead of a principle.
Recognize When We Attach to Positions Instead of Principles
When Mark and I got married, we already had stuff, including kitchen and bathroom towels. We both wanted new towels. (We agreed on that principle.)
However, I’d always had flowered bath towels. He’d always had brown towels. He didn’t like my flowers and I hated his brown towels. I wanted more flowers and he wanted more brown. Uh oh. We were stuck on our respective positions.
We chose to discuss this before we went shopping, which saved us a whole bunch of time and aggravation. That’s when we realized we were attached to our previous choices.
Those past choices had served us well—in the past. However, we needed new positions for the present and the future. When we went shopping, we learned that we both liked towels with “interest,” as in some border or plaid or something that was neither flowers nor brown.
We didn’t compromise, where each of us lost something. Instead, we found a new way forward where neither of us felt as if we were losing. That’s because we focused on principles. My principle was “interesting.” Mark’s was “not flowers.” Those principles allowed us to discover more options.
Principles Create More Options
The more we commit to principles, the more options we can create. On the other hand, the more we commit to positions, the more we choose “sides.” We fall into the trap of either-or-thinking.
You’ve seen this at work, too. The more rules an organization has, the more people might maliciously comply with those rules. However, the more people say, “Here’s the principle behind our thinking,” the more options people can create. The more new futures, just like France, we can imagine.
Those new futures allow us to build more resilience and adaptability. That’s a win-win.
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Till next time,
Johanna
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