Many leaders ask us how they can change their workplace culture. They ask, “How can we be more creative?” or “How can we build a culture of customer satisfaction?”
Every organization has its own culture and every culture is made up of rules governing what’s right and proper.
Eric Berne, psychiatrist and author of Games People Play, identified game theory as a great model for understanding culture and behavior in the fifties and sixties. If you’ve ever heard a businessperson refer to win/win situations or zero-sum games, they are using Berne’s framework.
Taking into consideration the game theory of work helps us understand an organization’s culture and how it can be changed. Take the example of football: Football has roles, rules and rewards. These are the three central elements of a game. Players have to understand their role in the game, how the game is played and how to score.
If you want to change the game, you do one of three things: introduce new roles for people, change the rules or change the method of scoring. Exactly the same thing is true in the work place: changing the roles, rules or rewards changes the culture.
We try to support community organizations through our pro bono work and advocacy. This year we are involved in some direct fundraising for a worthy cause.
Beginning June 8, David is riding the MS 150. That’s two days and 150 miles on a bicycle from Duluth to Minneapolis. He’s riding as part of a team that is one of the five largest contributors to MS research.
Every little bit helps. Please consider contributing something on behalf of yourself or your organization.
$25 can provide yoga and exercise instruction or educational materials to a person with MS
$50 can provide transportation to an MS club or group meeting for someone with no means to get there
$200 can pay for an occupational therapy home assessment for someone having difficulties with daily tasks around the house
$300 can maintain an MS group for an entire year
At Home Group Charity Event
In October, David will emcee a gala fundraising event for the At Home Group (Small Sums Change Lives). This organization helps individuals who are homeless with tools and resources that enable them to land jobs, secure accommodation and even start small businesses. Sometimes all it takes for someone to become self-sufficient is the cost of a few bus fares for job interviews. Learn more about the organization here, and look forward to additional information leading up to the event.
Games People Play, by Dr. Eric Berne was originally published in 1964. The book gained recognition as developing one of the most innovative approaches to modern psychotherapy—transactional analysis. Games People Play is a classic that should be read again and again.
Hearing the term game theory might make many recall the film A Beautiful Mind loosely based on the biography about John Forbes Nash, Jr., a mathematician who also provided great insight into game theory.
Did You Miss the Three Things to Look For in an Executive Consultant?
Only about 40 percent of the people polled in our last newsletter on brainstorming thought it was almost always effective. This is surprising since brainstorming is the default creativity tool used by most teams.
We detailed six steps that improve brainstorming:
Preparation
An incubation period to mull over the issue
Warm up
Ideation
Solution finding
Implementation
These steps should be enough for the 30 percent who find brainstorming only “sometimes” worthwhile.
For the other 30 percent of you, “let’s brainstorm this” is probably a cliché you hear too often in your organization. Try some other creativity processes such as The World Café, The Delphi Technique or the stage-gate model.
We try to support community organizations through our pro bono work and advocacy. This year we are involved in some direct fundraising for a worthy cause.
