Using Game Theory to Set Team Goals — A Contrarian Approach

We have grown up thinking that we must win. And that means, we must make someone else lose. In a team, when each person thinks in this manner, there is competition. The best man wins. He is the star. But where does that leave the others? What consequence does this have for the team and the organization as a whole? Is this the best possible model? Are there better models that we can use from history’s success stories?

There are two ways to look at team outcomes — 1) Winner takes all or 2) Everyone benefits. The former is called a ‘zero-sum’ game. In this article, I wish to explore the idea of non-zero sum game theory as applied to team goals.

Context:

As a manager who needs to set my team, goals for the next half of the year, I have been contemplating the best way to frame them so that individuals develop, while still making the team and the company go forward collectively. It hit me in this contemplation that whenever individuals strive to make themselves better, it is perceived as coming at the expense of someone else’s benefit. That means, if one person in the team succeeds, some else isn’t succeeding as much! If one person’s positive outcome comes with an implied negative consequence for another, then, can the collective outcome for the team be a high-growth one?

Game Theory of Evolution:

Quite serendipitously, right around this time, I stumbled upon Robert Wright’s non-zero-sum theory of human evolution. (Link: Click Here) It may be summed up as: In the past, each person / group was self-serving and considered others as ‘less befitting’ to receive privileges. People had slaves, while they themselves lived in relatively higher luxury and cornered most of the resources. However, this didn’t do much good. Then, the world got more egalitarian as people started to recognize that it is in everyone’s interest that the slaves too develop intellectually and financially. People realized that overall, everyone was better off if no one was left behind to create trouble or breed resentment. In this manner, the world became a more equal place and now we have countries that largely respect each other’s autonomy, culture and attitudes — one may even say that we now accept that ‘all rule-abiding humans are equal and deserve equal rights’. In other words, by sharing resources more equally among all, rather than letting it be utilized by only a few, everyone had more resources eventually to share! Thus, the intense ‘winner-take-all’ style competition for resources was not required and this lead to more overall peace, contentment and even, prosperity.

Applying Game Theory to Team Goals:

What has this got to do with team goals? The prevailing view is that individual team members have to compete amongst themselves to emerge as the star player and grab the greater opportunity that is afforded by the best performer. This leads to the rewards being cornered by a few, leaving the rest resentful and demotivated. Overall productivity as a team takes a hit. What if that idea was turned around and the rewards were offered instead for cooperation, rather than for competition? Let’s say that we can develop a model for team goal-setting that allows for people to improve each other’s competence. Let’s say that the goal is to make the entire team a high-performance one, rather than just a few people within it. Wouldn’t that be a more beneficial model overall, for a company, than to develop a few individual stars?

Hurdles to the Non-Zero-Sum Model:

One may argue that making rewards collective can kill the drive and ambition of a few. Non-zero-sum rewards seem like communism, which has obviously failed in the countries it has been tried in. Smart, achievement-oriented individuals are indeed the big movers and shakers; tying them down to collective outcomes can slow down their pace and kill their motivation. While this argument appeals on the surface, History shows something else. Capitalism, in its very visible form, has shown that when high performing organizations/nations cooperate, come together and work as a group, collectively a great many things can be achieved. Mergers, cooperative societies, public-private partnerships and the very United Nations are examples that quickly come to mind. Elite Old Boys’ Clubs and powerful Chambers of Commerce are strong reminders of what comes from clever people cooperating for mutual benefit. The key here is to have common goals and rewards that can be shared by all.

One may argue that the annual bonus pie in organizations is a fixed one and that one person getting more of it automatically means that there is less for everyone else to go around! Yes, viewed through the limited lens of annual bonuses, performance rewards are highly zero-sum. However, if we widen the lens and take a broader more panoramic view of opportunities, there is enough room to accommodate all high performing individuals, how many ever there are in a team! While bonuses are only one way of measuring and rewarding success, alternative opportunities, job-rotation possibilities, parallel advancement of multiple team members etc. are other avenues that can be utilized to recognize high-performance employee-groups. In fact, arguably, the bonus pie itself may be up-sized for a sufficiently powerful team, may be?

Structuring Goals to Encourage Cooperation:

So, what specific types of goals may be set to utilize the progressive ideas of non-zero-sum game theory? Here are some that I can think of:

• Set individual goals that are necessarily only a part of team goals. This means, the goal is worded such that the person cannot achieve it just by individual merit, but will need to build cooperation and consensus among team members
• Appreciate, appreciate, appreciate. The pace of progress is less important than its direction. So long as every member is moving the team forward, take the time to note and remark about even small improvements. Encouragement keeps people’s motivation high. Specially appreciate those that help others improve
• Set goals for each team member that depends on other people’s success. Make it the goal of each individual to make another person in the team successful in some way, however small
• Create mentor-apprentice pairs, where appropriate
• Create buddy pairs where appropriate and assign pair goals
• Create a concerns-redressal forum where people can air their grievance. Groups will have trouble getting along; but they need to be helped along in becoming cooperative
• Motivate the creation of and success of group-projects that may be initiated and executed autonomously by the team. Publicize such successes to motivate the team to stay together
• Pencil in group lunches and team building activities
• Have skill-transfer workshops from time to time to ensure that information and skills aren’t being concentrated in a few hands
• Set up collaborative and transparent work space. Keep tasks of the team public and their status up to date. This keeps people accountable towards each other and prevents the formation of information silos

As a manager:

• Work towards acquiring a larger bonus-pie to distribute depending on the team’s collective performance
• Participate actively in the team’s initiative, often functioning as ‘just another member’ rather than as boss
• Encourage group work and assign work consciously in a manner that doesn’t skew the development of just a few people; work plans need to be inclusive and give everyone an opportunity to grow and show their mettle
• Make team success a bigger deal than individual successes. Reward both, but make cooperation more ‘lucrative’ in a practical way than individual stardom. For example, higher raises for cooperative people than for competitive ones. This has to be done carefully in order to maintain singleton stars’ spark burning bright while still conveying that team shows are more valuable than one-man-shows

If I have missed anything out or you have perspectives to contribute, please chime in. I’d love to hear from you.