Article in the MIT/Sloan review, about an interesting application of the Prisoner’s Dilemma game in the HBR Review, by a Stanford psychologist (talk about Ivy League linking…) Lee Ross and his colleagues:
Ross conducted a classic “prisoner’s dilemma” scenario with a group of participants. This scenario is one in which two prisoners each are given, separately, the options of cooperating with one another by staying silent, or betraying the other prisoner for a chance at freedom. The catch is that the benefit (or cost) of betrayal versus cooperation is determined by the choice of the other prisoner — that is, whether one prisoner’s choice is better or worse for his situation depends entirely on what action his counterpart takes.
The twist to this scenario was that the researchers told participants in one group that they were playing “the Wall Street Game” and in the other group were told that they were playing “the Community Game.”
The results were striking. When participants were told that they were playing the Wall Street Game, 70% of participants acted according to rational self-interest and chose to betray the other prisoner. When participants were told that they were playing the Community Game, however, 70% of participants chose to cooperate. The key takeaway is that a substantial portion of people decide whether or not to cooperate based on environmental conditions.
As the MIT blog points out, this has some interesting implications for Social Business meeting Corporate Culture:
The implications for how (and with whom) to deploy social business are profound. Companies that already exhibit the cooperative culture of the Community Game will benefit more readily from social business. Social business tools unlock the inherent willingness to collaborate and desire to cooperate embedded in the organizational culture. At the risk of putting too fine of a point on it, social business is the Community Game, where benefits accrue from cooperation and sharing information.
As MIT also points out, enterprises that exhibit the self-interested culture of the Wall Street game, however, may require a cultural shift before they can benefit similarly…and that this cannot be faked (a point we make in our 7S model of social business too). What this means for Social Business in agressive business cultures like investment banking is an interesting thought, if it – as we believe it will – proves to be a more efficient way of doing business.