Friend and Foe: When to Cooperate, When to Compete, and How to Succeed at Both

So who's this book for? "Friend and Foe" is aimed at anyone who wants to improve their interpersonal skills, develop their relationships, and succeed at the social side of life. But it also offers valuable insights into how our own beliefs, assumptions and common mistakes affect our connections with other people.

This book is packed with cutting-­edge research and insights that make it a fascinating and useful resource for understanding relationships. It also shows what you can do to change the dynamics of your interactions. The book is easy to read, with lots of anecdotes to illustrate the authors' points, which makes it interesting as well as informative.

Adam Galinsky is a social psychologist known for his research on leadership, power, negotiations, decision making, diversity, and ethics. He's a professor of business at Columbia Business School. Maurice Schweitzer is a professor at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned his PhD in operations and information management.

So keep listening to learn the three factors that influence whether we see someone as a "friend" or as a "foe," the four red flags of lying behavior, and how an apology can fix a damaged relationship.

Three main forces interact with one another and influence whether we see someone as a "friend" or a "foe." The first is the scarcity of resources. This increases competition, but we need cooperation to acquire and keep those resources. Just look what happens on Black Friday, the big shopping day after Thanksgiving in the U.S. In 2008, cooperation went out the window at a Walmart store, and a man was trampled to death in the rush to secure some of those valuable resources.

The second force is the social nature of human beings. Isolation has been effectively used as a form of punishment. At the same time, we both compete and cooperate with others for friends, lovers and social connections. In other words, we can't survive without one another.

Finally, we need to remember that our social world is unstable. Resources and relationships can quickly come and go, leaving us with a constant need for both competition and cooperation. Instability is the third force.

These three factors appear throughout the book, and Galinsky and Schweitzer provide thought­provoking and clear evidence of how each of them influences our social lives and the decisions we make. At the end of every chapter, there's a helpful section called "Finding the Right Balance," offering the authors' insights and advice on how to know when someone is "friend" or "foe" and how to use both competition and cooperation to survive.

So let's take a closer look at how we can cooperate and compete – and succeed at both. Comparing ourselves to others is instinctive and inevitable. We feel happy about the salary we've worked for, for example, until we find out the new guy is getting paid more. We look up to people who outperform us, which can make us feel bad but also motivates us to try harder. We look down on people we feel superior to, which makes us feel good but complacent.

To thrive, we need a balance between feeling good about ourselves and feeling motivated to perform well. And we have to be careful not to get so motivated by social comparisons that we cheat, take unnecessary risks, and turn "friends" into "foes."

Galinsky and Schweitzer provide a few suggestions for finding the right balance. When we lose, we need to turn our disappointment into motivation and find new opportunities to compete. And when we win, we need to be modest about it, because our successes may upset others. The key to social comparisons is to compete with people who are less fortunate than you if you want to feel happier, but with those more fortunate than you if you want to motivate yourself.

This book is packed with interesting facts, stories, theories, and anecdotes, and we don't have time to discuss them all here. One of Galinsky and Schweitzer's more fascinating ideas concerns power. It's often what drives the way we think and behave.

But we really only have power over someone when he or she wants something we have. In that sense, power is driven by the three forces I mentioned earlier – scarce resources, the social nature of humans, and the instability of the world we live in. As we cooperate and compete under these key conditions, our thirst for power can put us in control of our own lives but also blind us to the suffering of others.

But power is also about how we feel. Galinsky and Schweitzer refer to a study that found expansive postures, such as standing with your hands on your hips, makes you feel more powerful because you're taking up more space. And the more powerful you feel, the more assertive you'll be. In one study, 68 percent of the participants who recalled memories of feeling powerful just before a job interview got the job.

So how can you be powerful without alienating others? According to Galinsky and Schweitzer, it's best to show equal amounts of both confidence and acquiescence to keep you in a powerful position while retaining your social support. For example, in a job interview, you want to present yourself as a confident person while also showing suitable respect for the interviewer.

But social engagement involves more than just a fight for power. We also need to protect ourselves and learn how to detect lying and cheating. Many people lie or cheat some of the time, so we tolerate these flaws in small amounts. A little bit of lying actually builds relationships, like when you tell your friend you like his cooking. The key is to decide whether the lie will boost the other person's self-­esteem and how useful it would be for him in other ways, such as improving his skills. So if it's a "no" in both cases, it's probably best to tell the truth.

For some people, lying and cheating come naturally and they need to exert a lot of self-control to stop themselves. But Galinsky and Schweitzer say we use the same "mental muscle" to control everything, from eating too much to achieving our goals, and this "muscle" gets tired after a while. That's why we sometimes give up when we try to study for an exam and diet at the same time. And that's why some individuals find it hard to resist the urge to lie and cheat.

To avoid becoming the victim of cheating and lying, the authors suggest paying attention to what someone is saying and asking open-­ended questions with a negative assumption. For example, if you're buying a car, you might ask the salesperson, "What problems does this car have?" When people lie, they usually pause and use filler words like "um" to give themselves time to remember their lie. If you ask more questions and distract them, it makes it harder for them to keep on top of their story.

Galinsky and Schweitzer also provide four red flags to tell if someone's lying. The first is inappropriate behavior. They give the example of convicted murderer Scott Peterson, who went golfing and sold his wife's car when she went missing.

The second red flag is running for the exit. Deception makes us feel anxious and we'll often head for the door when the pressure's on. Third, there's overcompensation. This is what former U.S. president Bill Clinton did, when he was accused of having a relationship with Monica Lewinsky. He did have an affair with her, but adamantly denied it and his protests looked like he was overcompensating. Finally, there's words and body mismatch. If you say you're furious at an injustice but you look calm, you're probably lying.

All this lying and cheating can damage our relationships. So how do we put the pieces back together? It depends on whether the mistake was a "core" or "non-core" violation of trust.

"Core" violations cause long-­term damage to someone's reputation. For example, American businesswoman Martha Stewart went to prison for charges related to securities fraud and obstruction of justice. But she regained her reputation and her success as a lifestyle guru when she was released, because her crimes were unrelated to why people trusted and valued her. She was a source of home­ décor and cooking tips, and that hadn't changed. Her conviction was a "non-core" violation.

On the other hand, when car makers recall faulty vehicles, it damages the public's trust in their brands because it's a "core" violation.

What do you do when things go wrong? First, say you're sorry. Apologizing is hard because we're scared of losing power and becoming vulnerable. But often, it's the only way to put things right – as long as you do it properly. An apology that will actually mend fences has to be done right away. You also need to show vulnerability and be candid about what you did wrong, promise to change, and focus on the victim, including making amends.

Galinsky and Schweitzer suggest another way to improve relationships is to find out as much as possible about the other person, and we can do this by asking questions. We've got to put ourselves in the other person's shoes, while still maintaining our position. Too much empathy can lead us to cooperating when we should be keeping our defenses up, but, without any empathy, we're just bullies. Again, we need a balance of both.

The authors show how this idea can help prevent some common communication problems in the workplace. They say business leaders often don't communicate enough, and asking their colleagues questions can get the conversation rolling.

In addition, managers don't always realize how much meaning is packed into their words, so it helps to see things from the team's point of view. For example, if you tell a member of your team you want to speak with him later, he'll probably be worried sick. It's better to simply tell him what you want to talk about.

Leaders also tend to forget the power of their words. You might think you're offering constructive feedback to your staff, but to them it sounds like criticism. Taking their perspective can help to smooth out misunderstandings and build trust into your relationships.

We can also identify with others by mimicking their expressions. Galinsky and Schweitzer cite a study of married couples, in which the couples began to look more alike over time because they copied one another's expressions. Conversely, research has shown that Botox users sometimes feel isolated. They can't move their facial muscles enough to mimic others and so they lose that vital connection. We're usually unaware of people mimicking us but, when they do, we tend to like them more and feel less anxious, and this develops trust.

Cooperation is essential for our survival, but so is competition, if you go about it the right way. For example, sometimes it's better to be first on a list, and other times it pays to be last. Research shows that, in elections, the first candidate on the ballot often has the advantage. We subconsciously assume the first is the best. Another study shows that prisoners are more likely to be paroled when they're interviewed first in the day, before the judges get too tired or hungry.

But in competitions where candidates perform one after the other, like ice skating or "American Idol," studies show it's best to go last. Our memory of the earlier contestants fades. Plus, we're stingier with our high ratings early in the competition.

In negotiations, making the first offer is often a disadvantage. Galinsky and Schweitzer suggest making your first offer as far into the negotiation process as possible, after you've had time to gather information and ask questions. By making an ambitious first offer, you'll give yourself room to negotiate and then you'll appear more cooperative.

This book is a delightful and insightful exploration of how we make friends, avoid enemies, fight for power, and gain acceptance. It's full of stories and examples that offer a revealing and fresh perspective on the ideas and motivations behind peace and conflict, backed up with solid research and presented in a clear and easy­-to-­read style.

You don't have to decide whether someone is a "friend" or "foe." According to Galinsky and Schweitzer, it's better if people are both. We need to compete and cooperate with others to secure the resources we want, and maintain the social relationships we need, to navigate life's ever-­changing tides.

"Friend and Foe: When to Cooperate, When to Compete, and How to Succeed at Both" by Adam Galinsky and Maurice Schweitzer is published by Crown Business Books.

That's the end of this episode of Book Insights. Thanks for listening.