In a game called “Winners”, a group of twenty people are divided into five equal teams. That is to say, each team consists of four members each with no experience of working together or knowing one another before. The determinant of success or objective of the game is defined as “Every team must make a profit.” Each team is given a time limit of sixty minutes to achieve the objective of the game, in which they must come up with a product and earn a profit within the given time frame. It is evident however, that the success rates for people who participated in the game were only two percent.
Two major conclusions for the shockingly low rate of success were made.
1. When the game just began, most teams begin work by choosing the first few products to sell that came to mind, and also responsibilities of duties were assigned perfunctorily.
2. When every team was interviewed after the game and asked about their definition of success, most teams gave a rather abstract definition of success such as “To each the highest profit”, “To earn a profit”, “To have fun together” or “To give it our best.”
The learning objectives of the game were to show the importance of getting to know one another before the assignment of duties. There was clearly a lack of teams who first gathered together and introduced themselves to one another- to learn about each member’s past history and working experience. When the teams were asked why they neglected doing so, most teams replied by saying “there was a lack of time for that” or that “they felt that this was not important step” What was evident from past experience from players before was that the successful teams were the ones who got to know each other before splitting the workload.
Another learning objective for the players is to highlight the importance of all teams having a very clear definition of success before starting the games. It is however noted that most teams experienced what is known as a “competitive block.” That is to mean that they are blinded by their own competitiveness to outperform the other teams, and to earn a higher net profit than their “competitors.” The rules of the game were simple and clear. I repeat again to highlight the importance and succinctness of it:
“Every team must make a profit.”
As long as one team fails to earn a profit, every other team would have failed in this game. What is ironic is that many teams have even experienced the need to “kill off all competitors.”
My point here is that too often we are blinded by our own need for success, to do well in the examinations that we embrace a dog eat dog world and do not look around us for the bigger picture. I make it a point for me at the beginning of each school semester to set my own personal objective- and it was “Everyone in my team must do well” for last semester. In the book “The One Minute Millionaire” written by Mark Victor Hansen & Robert G. Allen the author of the chicken soup series, he writes these two characteristics and values about successful people:
1. Abundance is your natural state
And
2. Givers Get
These two structural principles go hand in hand with one another. Robert G. Allen believes that the first principle is important because our state of mind creates our state of results. If you believe that money exists in limitations to everyone, it will be limited to you that way too. But if you believe that money exists in abundance, obtaining money in abundance is possible. This is more known as the self-fulfilling prophecy.
The second principle “Givers get” embraces a paradox which makes no logical sense. However on the meta level, it proves true. In 2 Corinthians 9:6 it says “He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.” The seeds for harvest refer metaphorically to the act of giving. Think about it carefully, isn’t the old saying of “Respect, the more you give, the more you will receive” proven through time to be true?
I for one know this to be true for my studies. A mentor of mine once told me that the best way to learn is to teach- By teaching my friends and making study notes for my friends before the examination, my grades have improved significantly. One way this is achieved is through the feedback I received for my notes I make and how to improve on it. To the cynical person, it may sound a little hypocritical to give only for the sake of receiving. But to the egoist, this form of giving is the most praise worthy form of altruism. No doubt embracing this paradox takes a great combination of faith, action and trust. To accept these values, it may make one easier to do so by embracing a poem by Apollinaire:
“Come to the edge, he said.
They said, we are afraid.
Come to the edge, he said.
They came,
He pushed them
And they flew.”
