I struggle to enable our participants learn certain abstract concepts. The concept of “Value” is one of those.
All too often value is simply defined as quality less cost. Few learners seem to want a deeper investigation as there is a predilection to avoiding cost-cutting (value is cost) that affects their personal view of quality. A clear understanding of what value really is and means is critical for business.
I have used typical case studies asking our learners to think about the value of a mobile phone, or an earthmover, or a hospital procedure. i have experienced that if the example is too close to the learners’ experience they tend to fall back onto learned bad habits (“we know we offer value” without being able to explain further) or create staw-man concepts to burn ( ”we shouldn’t just cut costs”) or into abstract theory (where the tendency is to focus on rational value for companies). There is also nothing at stake in these discussions and it is hard for me to land the learning when little is at stake.
So, for the past four years, i have been thinking about how to force people out of their rational minds and straw-men concepts into experiencing what value actually is via a serious game. With the aim of prompting a better debate about how people acted rather than how they think they would act.
As an aside, I have found serious games (or games with a purpose) an excellent means to enable learners to gain tolerance, flexibility and adaptation. Serious games can be thought of as a partial representation of reality which selects essential characteristics of real situations and makes a replica of them, within an environment or place which is free of risk. It is an activity that works, entirely or partially, based on players’ decisions and interactions between players. Typically a simple game lacks this purpose-ness of the implicit learning objective beyond entertainment and social interaction; hence my games are ”serious”.
“High Society” and ”Value”
The game, at its heart, is simple. High Society (created by Reiner Knizia, published by Osprey) is an auction/hand management game for three to five players.
Players pose as nouveau-riche Belle Epoque socialites wasting their money on ostentatious possessions and trying to avoid misfortune. This is superbly captured in the award winning graphic design by Medusa Dollmaker.
Each player receives an identical inheritance with which to enter high society. There are sixteen possession, recognition, and misfortune cards that are shuffled together with the first player revealing the top card of the deck.
By turn, players bid to capture the desirable baubles revealed in the cards, using their inheritance cash- once bid the card can not be removed only added to (no change is given) meaning the necessity of having a bidding strategy. If the bidding is too steep, a player may pass, taking their bid back, but missing out on the value on the card. The bid winner buys the card by paying the bank their bid .
If the upturned card is a “misfortune” card players must seek to avoid it, as it contributes negative value to their hand. The first player to pass on the misfortune keeps their cash (but suffers the consequences of the misfortune) and all other players pay the bank having avoided misfortune this round.
Some of the cards are extra special – the recognition cards can multiply or diminish your hands value by affecting your reputation positively or negatively.
The game ends after 30 minutes (time is a sacrifice) or when all the value cards are exhausted. The poorest player(s) (least cash remaining) is/are eliminated from winning the game as only the genuinely rich can win. The remaining player with the highest value score wins.
Observing the play shows that while the abstract concept of value can often be difficult to understand, players instinctively understand the concept of value when playing with something at stake. Value is clearly seen to comprise both gathering tangible benefits and avoiding tangible sacrifices – whether that’s overpaying for low value cards or being forced to pay to avoid misfortune- while marshalling their inheritance cash. Additionally, recognition cards represent intangible values – whether it’s greater recognition value or avoiding scandal or ill health.- and these attract more intense bidding, as in real life.
Thus all the key components of real consumer focussed value are introduced as the game is debriefed…
- Value comprises both Benefits and Sacrifices (not just quality and cost)
- That value can be both tangible (help me do my job) and intangible (make me look good) with the intangible value often having an out-sized and longer term impact
- And this is linked to a willingness to exchange scarce resources to secure one and avoid the other
- Often people are forced by lack of resources to accept a suboptimal result
- Additionally players will debate whether the value assigned to each card represents their personal view- showing that value is in the eyes of the client or customer and not in the eyes of the business or game-creator.
- one area absent, is the intertwining of personal and organisational goals… but this absence gives an entrée into a discussion as we apply the concept of value to a work environment.
The game has been tailor-made by creating alternative value cards to reflect the values within certain industries- for example healthcare, where “bonne santé” “infermité” “goutte” and “obesité” appear, replacing some of the standard value cards and providing a real life discussion on how people can create more value by increasing benefits or reducing sacrifices in healthcare that learners face when dealing with clients.
The game plays well as it is easy to understand and play . It creates excitement and with interaction comes agency enabling a dynamic and involving discussion afterwards. It does an excellent job in quickly and easily making concrete the nebulous concept of value in business. i certainly recommend it (sorry, self recommending) so please connect with Singapore Management University Executive Development (exd@smu.edu.sg)