Today, most children think that the only way one can win is if someone else loses. The scoreboard used in traditional games reinforces the message that if there is a winner there must be a loser. The possibility of a game or sporting activity having a win-win score is outside the realm of experience for most children.

EnTeam uses a win-win scoreboard on the baseball diamond, the volleyball court, the chessboard, and in the classroom. EnTeam’s game’s objectives and rules differ from the traditional games because in EnTeam both sides work together to overcome an impersonal opponent such as time, distance, fear, or the unknown. The different sides win together or fail together depending on their ability to work together.

The premise of EnTeam is that people who play win-win games as often as they play win-lose games—and reflect on their experience—will have a more balanced view of problem solving. In our global world today we compete to survive and cooperate to thrive.

The goal of EnTeam is to help people understand that by using win-win relationships everyone can win by bringing out the best in each other. By using win-lose situations someone is always hurt.

A premise of EnTeam is that people generalize from what they experience. Those who learn through traditional games experience the win-lose model. From that experience people reason inductively that in life that there must be a loser if there is going to be a winner. As a result, some people infer that win-win is not real. They tend to generalize from games that the world is competitive and not cooperative.

EnTeam asserts that this conclusion is incomplete and misleading because it omits those relationships that are healthy only when they are structured as win-win relationships:
• Parent-child relationships
• Sibling relationships
• Student-teacher relationships
• Marriage
• Employment relationships
• Business transactions such as buy-sell agreements
• Law-making
• International trade agreements
All of these relationships become dysfunctional when the parties approach them as win-lose contests.

This is not to say that there are no win-lose contests. Competition is pervasive. Every situation that involves choice has an element of competition.

The point is that people must use skills in a competitive situation that are different from the skills they use in collaborative situations. Games should be used to teach and measure both skill sets. However, most children today do not sign up for sports that use a scoreboard that measures cooperative performance explicitly.

EnTeam provides that scoreboard for measuring cooperation between different sides. The benefits of using the EnTeam scoring process is that players hone their ability to collaborate with people on different teams. Different sides learn to bring out the best in each other through communication, cooperation, and teamwork with strangers. Players learn how to move gracefully from win-lose competition to win-win collaboration.

The outcome of EnTeam is a more balanced view of the world and a healthy view of life showing how winning could reduce the tendency toward social, military, and economic conflicts. The more people play EnTeam games, the more productive and peaceful our world will be.