athenaInsight April 10, 2017
Those of us who teach negotiation often use a game, developed by Harvard Business School professor Michael Wheeler, called “Win As Much as You Can.” It is the ultimate exercise in how difficult it is to achieve sustainable cooperation within a structure that pushes people to behave selfishly.
The game pits four players against another. In 10 successive rounds, each participant plays an “X” or a “Y” card. The payout to each player depends on his or her choice in that round, as well as the choices made by the other three players. Your chance of winning as much as you can for yourself depends on persuading everyone in the group to play “Y,” but the structure of the game...