It is natural to be inclined to fight so you can win.

However as you become more senior, winning individual decisions at all cost can easily become more harmful than helpful. Or sometimes, things don't go your way and you cannot win. Deciding *how* you lose, with an eye toward the ultimate long term goal, can produce better outcomes, improve colleague relationships, and transform a short term loss into a long term gain.

This talk distills my own experience learning how to lose gracefully and wisely, so that I can win in the long term. We'll discuss people, technical, and organizational aspects of long term planning, with techniques, including:

• Considering past history and future direction of organizations to predict sore topics and produce future alignment.
• Being flexible on individual battles produces fewer zero-sum mindsets, more win-win collaboration
• Planting seeds of the technical and organization direction you want, and gardening them over time, to produce future alignment.

Attendees will leave with a new perspective on the potential value hiding in "failures" and an appreciation of the power of playing long term games.