In this particular game, participants act within a make-believe scenario. The participants are broken into four groups each playing a part of a HR department. The game itself runs for about two hours.
Here is an extract from the interview however the whole transcript and audio can be found from the ABC Radio National Website (http://www.abc.net.au/rn/futuretense/stories/2009/2769322.htm). It is certainly worth a look at and is particularly relevant in the current climate where there can be little room for failed innovation investment attempts.
Robert Dew: Adults are different to children when they learn in that they have a basis of experience that they need to connect to, so what they're learning needs to be relevant. They come in with some transferable competency, and so they undertake meaning making in a very different way. In the area of innovation, it's really challenging to get people to give up linear thinking if you don't activate the child within, so to speak. So playing a game gives the ability to make a model of the world, and it also gives a way of activating people's sort of play-like sense, and that means that they're better at making connections.
In this particular game, what we want to show is how industry dynamics work, and so because we set up technically what's called a multi-round, multi-player, prisoner's dilemma, with incomplete information. We can predict very clearly what the emergent behaviours will be, and everyone goes, 'Ah, that's what happens', so it's really kind of that learning by experience concept.
Antony Funnell: And what are you hoping that they will take away from this, in terms of innovation?
Robert Dew: So I'm hoping that people understand that just because I'm faced with a contradiction, in this case a contradiction between the problem of competing and collaborating. I want to do both of those things, and I can't. I either compete or collaborate, I can't do both. With linear thinking what you do is you end up with some kind of compromise, where I compete a bit, then I collaborate a bit, and I'm not doing either very well.
To innovate you need to get to a higher ground, which is that I'm going to compete and collaborate at the same time, and so the game shows them how that's systematically constructible. So that's really what I'm trying to achieve.
Robert also interestingly spoke of evolutionary theory and how he was particularly inspired by Richard Dawkins' book The Blind Watchmaker. I confess I haven't read The Blind Watchmaker, however I have read his 30th anniversary edition of The Selfish Gene and completely understand where Robert is coming from. (See http://richarddawkins.net/RDbooks for more information if you're interested.)
Essentially evolution is an answer for a non-linear, problem-solving algorithm where you need to essentially evaluate strategies on incomplete information in a dynamic world. Robert sees a clear connection with the strict biological problem and the problem of innovation in business today.
Robert also speaks of the power of games in an unfreezing process. Especially in adult learning where you easily have a room full of people each with decades of experience. I find games excellent for these reason also however that topic may be for another blog post.
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