Win As Much As You Can

This exercise was brief. As the title says, the goal was to win as much as we could. When explaining the game to us, the teacher insisted on the “YOU” so we would perceive it as the “individual you”. I think that what she did it on purpose so we would think as individuals and not as a group, that way, we would learn at our expenses that it is always better to also think about the others.

            Let me explain the game: we had two sheets of paper, one with an X and another with a Y. The teacher would count to three and at the end we had to “play a card” X or Y and according to the letter the profits and losses for each player was different:

-       4 Xs : everybody loses 1

-       3 Xs: Win 1 each
Y: Lose 3

-       2 Xs: Win 2 each
2 Ys: Lose 2 each

-       1 X: Win 3
3 Ys: Lose 1 each

-       4 Ys: Win 1 each

            During this game I had a special role: we were two people playing as one. As we didn’t have much time to organize a strategy with my partner (Celia), we just tried to win as much as WE could, sometimes I was the one deciding what card to play, sometimes it was Celia who decided. Most of the time, it was her because she is much better at making choices under pressure. It is part of my character actually, I tend to panic a lot when I am in a situation of stress, and this is an aspect of myself that I dislike a lot and that I try to correct, but it’s not that easy.

           

            I previously said that we didn’t have much time to think about which card to play, but it’s not totally accurate. Indeed, there were 3 “bonus” rounds that allowed all the group (the 4 players) to think about a strategy to win as much as possible. It was up to us to propose a strategy and decide to trust others or not. With Celia, we shortly agreed to “betray” the group strategy to win “as much as WE could”. We knew about the consequences, but we respected the teacher’s guidelines. The other 3 players followed the group strategy and were really surprised by our low bow, but Celia and I were quite satisfied about the results. Moreover, for all the “bonus” round the results were multiplied by 3, 5 or 10. This explains the deception of the other players because their losses were much more important during those “bonus” rounds.

            For the following “regular” rounds, Celia and I followed the same strategy, and again, it was more Celia deciding than me, but even with my doubts I was always satisfied by our card choices.  I think it’s more important to talk about the other 2 bonus rounds as the stakes were much more important. During the second “bonus” round, almost nobody respected the group strategy to win as a whole, maybe as a consequence of our betrayal but Celia and I managed to win and not lose. The 10^th round was also the last one, and again it was a special one, 2 players betrayed (one player + Celia and I) and the result was multiplied by 10 so we won a lot during this round. For the other regular rounds, such as the other players, we didn’t have a strategy knowing that there was almost no time for thinking and that we were two players deciding as one. I think that because of my stress issue, my score would have been different if I had played alone and not with Celia.

            Conclusions:

            We learnt that sometimes deciding and implementing strategies as a group is better as success comes from cooperation. I think that this conclusion was particularly accurate for the other players and less for Celia and I because, if everyone had played fairly during the 10 rounds, each one could have win 25 points but we actually won 29 points. Of course those 29 points came at an expensive price: the trust of the other players. 

We should know that during a negotiation it is very important to think about what the counterparts wins out of the deal if there is even just a little possibility that we are going to to business again one day. Because when trust is broken, it is very difficult, almost impossible to totally repair it and moreover, the next time there will be a negotiation, our counterpart will be angry. This bad feeling will lead to a bad or even inexistent negotiation.

            This negotiation was about trusting or not trusting others but also about showing or not showing trustworthy. If you know that there is an important negotiation coming, it is very important to show trustworthy beforehand and not just during the negotiation.