The Leadership Game
We played a wonderful organisational kinda game in our last LDP (Leadership Development program) session. This is a great differentiator at ISB. It was ingeniously set up and we had quite a few insightful takeaways by the time the game was over. Ofcourse it also meant sacrificing a whole sunday for the workshop but at the end of the day it was a sunday well spent.
I wouldnt go into the details of how the game was actually played as it would hamper the real essence of the learnings. But I would like to delve into the structured insights that were gained progressively. The game started with a distribution of wealth which was very random to replicate the very real life scenario of some being born with silver spoons in their mouths and some born to incompetent and lousy parents and some the so so ones. The next activity was to trade this wealth which we were born with, with others so that we can maximise our wealth. There were certain conditions which made this practically possible, for a person with virtually no wealth to become rich depending upon his/her abilities to trade and the opportunity available. At the end of the trading phase, we were distributed into 3 differentiating groups based on where each of us stood depending on the wealth we accumulated. The top 3 rich people were the Toppers or Top Management in a Company, the next 6 were the midders or the middle management and the remaining were designated as the poor workers class.
A virtual organisation was then set up and then we played another game, in which each of the 3 groups tried to maximise their gains again. Because of the real world similarities, the game was structured in such a way that maximum opportunities and high valued transactions were given to the top 2 groups and the 3rd group had to make do with the opposite. At the same time whatever were the profits in each group had to be divided by the total number in the group, so the rich ended up being richer and the poor ended up poorer.
I ended up in the midders group in the first game as I was also born with average amount of wealth, so I could say that I fairly made well. In the second game we ended up cutting each other (ie the three groups) ie nobody considered the interests of the other and everybody ended up making very less money comparatively. But since the Toppers were operating at a very high level, and there were only 3 members, they ended up earning more individual profits which made them more richer. The worst sufferers were the poor class who inspite of performing better than the others ended up the poorest.
We then had a second round in which each of us was given a chance to be born with new randomly chosen wealth. After the trading this time, I ended up in the top position alongwith my other 2 colleagues who were in middle management. So now we became the policy makers. Building up on our learnings from the past round we decided not to cut each other this time and operate in synergy to maximise everybody's profits in the next game. We also realised that being at the top of the pyramid, the actions from those at the bottom or at the middle can hurt us very badly, but at the same time, if we yield a little and accomodate the demands of these two classes within limits, and ask them not to interfere in our territory in return, then everybody gained. Also yielding a little didnt make much difference to us at the top. It was much like removing a few drops from the ocean. This policy went a long way in building the trust between the three groups (we were allowed to communicate only thru chits and not thru discussions) and everybody ended up maximising their profits. We the Top Management gained the most, but this was not at the cost of cutting from the other groups, but as a result of building and gaining trust and synergising.
This game at the end really thought us how important an element of trust is to function effectively in an organisation which has a hierarchical structure and needs cooperation from different groups. It is always better to accomodate the demands (rational of course) from those at the bottom of the pyramid and gain their trust which will benefit everybody.
I wouldnt go into the details of how the game was actually played as it would hamper the real essence of the learnings. But I would like to delve into the structured insights that were gained progressively. The game started with a distribution of wealth which was very random to replicate the very real life scenario of some being born with silver spoons in their mouths and some born to incompetent and lousy parents and some the so so ones. The next activity was to trade this wealth which we were born with, with others so that we can maximise our wealth. There were certain conditions which made this practically possible, for a person with virtually no wealth to become rich depending upon his/her abilities to trade and the opportunity available. At the end of the trading phase, we were distributed into 3 differentiating groups based on where each of us stood depending on the wealth we accumulated. The top 3 rich people were the Toppers or Top Management in a Company, the next 6 were the midders or the middle management and the remaining were designated as the poor workers class.
A virtual organisation was then set up and then we played another game, in which each of the 3 groups tried to maximise their gains again. Because of the real world similarities, the game was structured in such a way that maximum opportunities and high valued transactions were given to the top 2 groups and the 3rd group had to make do with the opposite. At the same time whatever were the profits in each group had to be divided by the total number in the group, so the rich ended up being richer and the poor ended up poorer.
I ended up in the midders group in the first game as I was also born with average amount of wealth, so I could say that I fairly made well. In the second game we ended up cutting each other (ie the three groups) ie nobody considered the interests of the other and everybody ended up making very less money comparatively. But since the Toppers were operating at a very high level, and there were only 3 members, they ended up earning more individual profits which made them more richer. The worst sufferers were the poor class who inspite of performing better than the others ended up the poorest.
We then had a second round in which each of us was given a chance to be born with new randomly chosen wealth. After the trading this time, I ended up in the top position alongwith my other 2 colleagues who were in middle management. So now we became the policy makers. Building up on our learnings from the past round we decided not to cut each other this time and operate in synergy to maximise everybody's profits in the next game. We also realised that being at the top of the pyramid, the actions from those at the bottom or at the middle can hurt us very badly, but at the same time, if we yield a little and accomodate the demands of these two classes within limits, and ask them not to interfere in our territory in return, then everybody gained. Also yielding a little didnt make much difference to us at the top. It was much like removing a few drops from the ocean. This policy went a long way in building the trust between the three groups (we were allowed to communicate only thru chits and not thru discussions) and everybody ended up maximising their profits. We the Top Management gained the most, but this was not at the cost of cutting from the other groups, but as a result of building and gaining trust and synergising.
This game at the end really thought us how important an element of trust is to function effectively in an organisation which has a hierarchical structure and needs cooperation from different groups. It is always better to accomodate the demands (rational of course) from those at the bottom of the pyramid and gain their trust which will benefit everybody.
posted by Bon | 4:18 am
1 Comments:
this is intersting version of popular game named "Win as much as you can"
who was trainer? email?
I can embedded it in another intervention.
nandan.vaidya@gmail.com
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