Thinking on the 'Win as much as you can' activity (1/2)
Today in class we had a guest lecture with Sanaz Fotouhi. It was a very enlightening lecture that provided many ideas and thoughts on collaborations and how in many cases collaborating leads to success and better ideas from different perspectives.
The first activity we were asked to complete was a game that Sanaz Fotouhi called 'Win as much as you can' which lead us all to believe there was a very competitive aspect to the game and to and extent there was but only if we intended there to be.
The game consisted of 10 rounds including several bonus rounds that would multiply our wins and losses in that round. My group consisted of Pablo and Kayla and for the first round I think we got a little side tracked from the logistics of the game and decided to make our first round choice based on what we thought nobody would choose so we decided on Y.
When we met back up as a class we learned that 2 groups picked X while the other 2 picked Y. This mean't the X people got $2.00 while the Y people lost $2 meaning we were negative $2 and we'd barely even started. It was interesting because the only round we actually worked as group was during the bonus rounds and all chose Y so we all gained points mutually.
It seems like we were all very much only trying to win points as a team and not as a larger group because it was never stipulated in the rules if we had to be the sole winning team or if it was only based on 'winning as much as you can'.
My group started playing mind games with the other groups for the hell of it. Kayla had a coin we were flipping rather loudly which helped a lot in doing this though we mainly picked Y anyway without consulting the coin.
Stuff like blurting out random suggestions in the group meetings I believe reinforced the idea of us being the team that would usurp the others in the final match.
Pablo on my team was an advocate for doing this though as I pointed out it may not be safe for us to become pariahs so early in the semester.
In the end nobody betrayed the groups trust though it was amazing that nobody thought to go back on there word from the meetings pre bonus round.
It is interesting to note that one group wasn't as forthcoming with there mindset which did cause discourse with the outcomes of the bonus rounds. There was also a consensus at the one point to agree that 2 groups pick X and 2 groups pick Y so as to balance the scores.
Our group finished with a score of + $14 which was awesome. It seems we were all very distracted by how we could possibly gain more points by taking advantage of the other groups choices.
Later we would realise after being told that if every group picked Y every match we would all end up with + $25 points each.
There was one flaw in the activity which was left to interpretation which was what winning really means for the game. Do we win when every team has +$25 or do we win by having the most out of all of the groups. The rules were open to interpretation but the act of splitting into groups left us no other choice but to go into each round fighting for ourselves.
What I learnt:
I think the main thing that became apparent from this task was working together was key and while we did manage to do so in the bonus rounds the rest of the game was still a free for all. Collaboration requires more effort, it needs all parties to be willing to trust and work together with a whole group of people in order to make a goal not only successful, but achievable.
I'm curious about this activity in that would the outcome have been different if we played it later in the semester and if so would we have been all working as a collective one now that we trust each other more or would we be more inclined to take more risks in order to thrill and shock and impress our friends?
The first activity we were asked to complete was a game that Sanaz Fotouhi called 'Win as much as you can' which lead us all to believe there was a very competitive aspect to the game and to and extent there was but only if we intended there to be.
The game consisted of 10 rounds including several bonus rounds that would multiply our wins and losses in that round. My group consisted of Pablo and Kayla and for the first round I think we got a little side tracked from the logistics of the game and decided to make our first round choice based on what we thought nobody would choose so we decided on Y.
When we met back up as a class we learned that 2 groups picked X while the other 2 picked Y. This mean't the X people got $2.00 while the Y people lost $2 meaning we were negative $2 and we'd barely even started. It was interesting because the only round we actually worked as group was during the bonus rounds and all chose Y so we all gained points mutually.
It seems like we were all very much only trying to win points as a team and not as a larger group because it was never stipulated in the rules if we had to be the sole winning team or if it was only based on 'winning as much as you can'.
My group started playing mind games with the other groups for the hell of it. Kayla had a coin we were flipping rather loudly which helped a lot in doing this though we mainly picked Y anyway without consulting the coin.
Stuff like blurting out random suggestions in the group meetings I believe reinforced the idea of us being the team that would usurp the others in the final match.
Pablo on my team was an advocate for doing this though as I pointed out it may not be safe for us to become pariahs so early in the semester.
In the end nobody betrayed the groups trust though it was amazing that nobody thought to go back on there word from the meetings pre bonus round.
It is interesting to note that one group wasn't as forthcoming with there mindset which did cause discourse with the outcomes of the bonus rounds. There was also a consensus at the one point to agree that 2 groups pick X and 2 groups pick Y so as to balance the scores.
Our group finished with a score of + $14 which was awesome. It seems we were all very distracted by how we could possibly gain more points by taking advantage of the other groups choices.
Later we would realise after being told that if every group picked Y every match we would all end up with + $25 points each.
There was one flaw in the activity which was left to interpretation which was what winning really means for the game. Do we win when every team has +$25 or do we win by having the most out of all of the groups. The rules were open to interpretation but the act of splitting into groups left us no other choice but to go into each round fighting for ourselves.
What I learnt:
I think the main thing that became apparent from this task was working together was key and while we did manage to do so in the bonus rounds the rest of the game was still a free for all. Collaboration requires more effort, it needs all parties to be willing to trust and work together with a whole group of people in order to make a goal not only successful, but achievable.
I'm curious about this activity in that would the outcome have been different if we played it later in the semester and if so would we have been all working as a collective one now that we trust each other more or would we be more inclined to take more risks in order to thrill and shock and impress our friends?
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My Group members were Pablo and Kayla. See there blogs in my side bar!
I never thought about whether the outcome would be different if we had played this later in the semester. I'm really curious now haha
ReplyDeleteI know right! It's a shame we cant try it again since now we all know the sure way to 'win' is to all pick Y but then I guess it depends if everybody wants to play for the group or play for their group... SO MANY POSSIBILITIES!
DeleteOooh, I never thought of re-playing this later in the semester either. It'd be interesting to see, for sure
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