Beyond My Way and beyond Your Way

The 3rd Alternative Author: Stephen R. Covey Publisher: Free Press, 2011 Extent: 457 pp

Noel Grima From the multimillion copy bestselling author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – hailed as the Most Influential Business Book of the 20th Century – The 3rd Alternative introduces a breakthrough approach to conflict resolution and creative problem-solving.

One of Time magazine’s 25 most influential Americans, Dr Stephen R. Covey has helped millions transform their lives. In The 3rd Alternative, Covey turns his formidable insight in a powerful new way to resolve professional and personal difficulties and create solutions to great challenges in organisations and society.

In any conflict, the 1st Alternative is my way and the 2nd Alternative is your way. The fight usually boils down to a question whose way is better. There are many methods of “conflict resolution”, but most involve compromise, a low-level accommodation that stops the fight without breaking through to amazing new results.

The 3rd Alternative is about more than just an armistice – it’s about creating a new and improved reality. A departure from the usual approaches to conflict resolution, negotiation and innovation, this book reveals a new way of thinking that will be embraced not only by the many fans who have flocked to Covey’s prior books but also by anyone who is seeking solutions in their professional or personal lives.

We get to the 3rd Alternative through a process called synergy. Synergy is what happens when one plus one equals ten or a hundred or even a thousand. It’s the almighty result when two or more respectful human beings determine together to go beyond their preconceived ideas to meet a great challenge. It’s about the passion, the energy, the ingenuity, the excitement of creating a new reality that is far better than the old reality.

The lack of a 3rd Alternative mindset is the great obstacle to synergy. People with the 2-Alternative mindset on a given issue can’t get to synergy until they admit synergy is even possible. Second-Alternative thinkers see only competition, never cooperation. It’s always “us versus them”. Second-Alternative thinkers see only false dilemmas, it’s always “my way or the highway”. Second-Alternative thinkers suffer from a kind of colour blindness, they can see only blue or yellow, never green.

Psychologists tell us that the first condition for healing and growth is “genuineness, realness, congruence”. The less we put up a front or façade the greater the chance of getting to synergy. Thus, the first paradigm is “I see myself” it means I am self-aware. “I see myself” contrasts sharply with the typical paradigm “I see my side”.

The second condition is accepting, caring for and prizing you. An “unconditional positive regard”, an outgoing, positive feeling toward you because I value you as a whole human being and not as a set of attitudes, behaviours or beliefs. You are not a thing to me, you are a person. “I see you” as a sister, a brother, a child of God.

The third condition is empathic understanding, which can’t happen until I have accepted the first two paradigms. Empathy means getting into and really understanding where the other person is coming from. Empathy is rare; you and I neither give nor get it very often. The effective paradigm is “I seek you out” in order to fully grasp what is in your heart, mind and soul, not in order to pass judgement on you. New ideas breathe best in an atmosphere of authentic, mutual understanding.

We have to meet the first three conditions to get to the fourth. Then we can learn and grow together toward a true “win-win” solution that is new to both of us. “I synergize with you” only when I have genuine positive regard for you and for myself and understand clearly what is going on in your heart and mind. “I synergize with you” only when I get past the scarcity mindset that there are only two possible alternatives and one of them is wrong. “I synergize with you” only when I adopt the abundance mindset that there are infinite rewarding, exciting, creative alternatives we haven’t even thought of yet.

All this is wrapped up with innumerable episodes from the lives of other people, known and unknown, sometimes from the author’s own life and relations. There are also veritable gems such as the Talking Stick from Native Americans, an important principle which should be adopted wherever people meet and discuss.

The book then branches out to discuss the 3rd Alternative at work, at home, at school, and the Law, in society, and lastly in the world.

Each section comes with a host of examples which are memorable in which desperate situations are overturned by the use of the 3rd Alternative.