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Tip 22 – How to Avoid the Winner’s Curse with Well-formed Outcomes

‘Be careful what you ask for, because you may get it.’ This is the winner's curse: getting what you want and then discovering it is not what you really wanted. ‘Let the winner beware’ is a way to warn against it.

The winner’s curse occurs mainly because of poorly formed goals or outcomes and overestimating the value of what we are trying to achieve.

There is a process that helps prevent and protect against the winner’s curse. It’s a NLP model which helps define well-formed outcomes.

Setting Goals using Well-formed Outcomes

Creating well–formed outcomes is a foundation model of NLP, which involves asking a series of questions to clarify what you really want. This process helps you distinguish between what you are asking for and what you really want, by understanding what having what you want will mean for you. As well as helping you define sensory specific outcomes so you understand how you will know if you get what you want, the process also enables you to figure out the steps to achieve this.

This basic process is easily and often overlooked. Knowing what you really want is critical for avoiding the winner's curse.

When our wants, dreams or wishes are refined using this model they become more believable and realisable. This is why they are then described as being ’well-formed outcomes’; they have fulfilled certain 'well-formedness conditions'.

Using this model creates a detailed internal representation - an important step in creating a belief in your objective.

The model ensures you focus on what you DO want rather than on what you do NOT want. Attention is on what to do and how to do it, rather than on problems, excuses, alibis, and explanations.

Outcomes directionalise a person’s thoughts and actions. Use them for your goals, dreams, wishes - and watch what happens. The questions in the model help distinguish between those factors which are relevant to getting what you want and those which are in the realm of history, complaint, etc.

Using the model improves your rapport with other people. If you have a joint project, using the well-formed outcome model to match and align your objectives adds to the rapport already existing between everyone – since you now have a joint commitment to the outcome which you are all moving towards. Also, when you use it to assist someone in clarifying what they want for themselves, they are likely to appreciate your concern and interest.

It also provides a means of evaluating progress. Having a well-formed outcome makes it more likely that you will quickly recognise when you are thinking or acting in ways that are at variance with your well-formed outcome, giving you a signal to stop and re-evaluate your activities.

When used to clarify formal discussions, work-related discussions or meetings, the well formed outcome model provides a framework that keeps discussions and activity on course.

The model has five conditions that must be met for an outcome to be well-formed. The mnemonic PACER makes these easier to remember:

P Stated in the Positive: What do you want?

A Demonstrated in Sensory Evidence: outcome is Achievable: How will you know you have got it?

C Context: where, when and with whom do you want it?

E Ecology: representative of me.

R Resources: can be initiated and maintained by me.

Let’s look at each of these in more detail:

P - Positive

First, the outcome must be stated in the positive. Find out what someone does want, not what is unwanted. If you were helping someone arrange furniture and they said to you, I don’t want that chair there, you would not have the information to know what to do with the chair or what to put in its place. Like the person who doesn’t like the position of the chair, often clients, family members and / or employees know what they don’t want, for example, a job applicant telling you that s/he doesn’t want to work at weekends, or an employee stating they do not like the way a particular display is set up. Some possible questions / comments for these, with the purpose of finding out about the individual wants, are:
What would be the ideal work schedule for you?
What is an acceptable work schedule?
I’m curious, how would you arrange the display?
What changes to the display could be made to make it attractive?

A - Achievable

A second criterion for a well-formed outcome is that it be demonstrable in sensory experience to both you and the person you are communicating with. Insights can be enlightening and useful but they do not constitute an experiential change. The question is: What would you and those you communicate with need to see, hear, and / or feel in order to know that you have accomplished your outcome? For example, if you and your family decided to have a meeting to plan a vacation, what would be the evidence that you had succeeded? Would you have a location selected? Would it be written down? Would the details for making arrangements be delegated to specific family members? It is imperative to determine mutually satisfying evidence procedures. Success cannot be recognised unless we know when we have achieved our goal.

C - Contextualised

The third well-formedness condition is that the outcome be appropriately contextualised and specified. In what contexts do you want it? In what contexts do you not want it? When, where, with whom do you want it? If an employee tells you they think they deserve a raise and you agree, the appropriate next step is to determine specifically how much of a raise, the date from which the raise is effective, and the criteria each of you used to come to this conclusion.

E - Ecological

The fourth well-formedness condition is to preserve ecology. By definition, ecology is the branch of biology that deals with the relations between living organisms and their environments. In relation to human behaviour and outcomes, the term is used to remind us that in order for a goal to be achieved, the outcomes must fit into the totality of our lives and preserve a balance. If a manager’s outcome is to fill a particular position demanding flexible working hours, but he doesn’t check whether or not the potential applicant is bound by certain time constraints (taking classes at a local university etc) his outcome would not be fully realised. Questions like, What resources, skills do you need to get this outcome? or What is the first step you can take now, toward your outcome? or What prevents you from getting your outcome? assist in preserving ecology.

R - Resources

The fifth condition is to identify the resources needed, and that the outcome is one that can be initiated and maintained by the individual. For example, one function of a manager is to assist employees in having choices over their own experience so that their well-being can be maintained through time without the need for the manager’s (or anyone else’s) continued assistance. People often ask for a change in someone else’s behaviour – If customers would: state more specifically what they want; be more responsible; or be more considerate … then I would be more friendly and eager to assist. While this is genuinely the individual’s experience, to assist them in achieving that outcome further reinforces the belief that their work experience is dependent on the behaviour of others.

For an experience or behaviour to be initiated and maintained by an individual assumes that s/he has the means to achieve the experience or behaviour on their own. One possibility is to assist the employee in the above example by inviting them to remember other times in their life when they chose to be friendly toward people in spite of how folks were acting. Once they recall some times - regardless of how long ago, where, or with whom - you can ask them what they did then and whether or not they think that behaviour might assist them now with the customer(s) with whom they were experiencing difficulty.

Questions for Eliciting a Well-Formed outcome with this model:

P Stated in the Positive

• What do I want?

A Demonstrated in Sensory Experience

• What would be my evidence that I had achieved my outcome?
• How would someone else know I had achieved it?
• What will I be doing to get it?
• External Behaviour: what will I be seeing and hearing?
• Internal State: what will I be feeling?
• Internal Processing: how will I represent this?
• What would be a demonstration of it? (remember you get to see the external behaviour here)

C Appropriately Specified and Contextualised

• Where do I want this outcome?
• Where do I not want this outcome?
• When do I want this outcome?
• When do I not want this outcome?
• With whom do I want this outcome?
• With whom do I not want this outcome?

E Ecological

• What would happen if I got this outcome?
• How will getting this outcome affect other aspects of my life?
• How does getting this outcome benefit me?
• Is the positive by-product preserved?

R Initiated and Maintained by myself

• What resources can I activate to get this outcome?
• What resources can I acquire to get this outcome?
• What can I do?
• What can I begin to do today?
• What can I continue doing?

This is most often not a linear process: once a part of the model has been refined it’s possible that other parts need to be revisited in a cyclical way. It’s important to be flexible with the model and use it as a framework to build up a well formed outcome.

Summary of model

P Positive

    What do you want? (stated in the positive)

A Achievement

   How would you know that you had it?

   What do you see, feel and hear?

   How would someone else know that you had it?

C Context

    When do you want it?

   When don't you want it?
With whom?

    Where?

E Ecology

    Positive by-products:

        What would happen if you got it?

         If you get what you want would you lose anything?

   Representative of you:

        Is it representative of who you are and where you want to be?

R Resources

    Can you initiate and maintain it?

It’s worth mentioning another aspect of the Winner’s Curse where an enthusiastic person with purpose and passion gets started down this path without support. The whole process can become seriously confusing and no fun at all. I call it ‘Pacer Purgatory’. Why does this happen? Because we can get over focused and work-addicted in our culture. We seem to turn everything into work because it’s the only way we know and soon the joy is completely drained out of it. A coach can help you enjoy this process, get the full value from it and infuse it with the ‘Spirit of Play’.

A coach can aid you in this respect and in many other ways.

Click here to arrange an introductory session to find out more.