A Nobel-Prize-winning talking strategy

Negotiating conflicts of interest boils down to horse trading. For example, instead of saying, “I’ll give you the white horse for the brown one” we say “I’ll give you money if you give me 40 hours of work each week.”  Both parties decide if the trade is fair.

The “transactions” become tough-minded when threats come into play such as, “You’ll give me money or I’ll see you in court” or “You do what I say or you’re fired!”

People face an array of potential communication situations. Can people follow one strategy that helps answer most “transactional” conversations involving conflicts of interests? The study of game theory provides an answer.

Game theory analyzes situations involving conflicting interests (as in business or military strategy) in terms of gains and losses among opposing players. Nine Nobel Prizes have been awarded to scientists studying this topic.

Let’s take a look at game theory as a useful talking strategy.

If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.”

 Lewis Carroll

The prisoner’s dilemma game

Game theory came from scientists search for the best way to solve conflicts of interest. 

Two researchers, Merrill M. Flood and Melvin Dresher, invented the Prisoner’s Dilemma game in 1950 to examine a baffling scenario.

 Here’s the premise:

The police arrest you and an associate. The two of you were smart and shredded the evidence but each face a year in prison. But the prosecutor wants to nail someone, so he offers a deal: by squealing on your associate – which results in a five-year jail sentence for him – the prosecutor will take six months off your sentence. This sounds good, until you realize the prosecutor is offering the same deal to your associate– which gets you a five-year stretch.

So what to do? The best plan is to agree to not squeal but cooperate in a mutual bond of silence, and do a year in jail.

But wait: if your associate goes along with silence, should you squeal (defect) and get that six-month reduction? It’s tempting, but then he’s also tempted. And if you both squeal, oh, no, it’s four-and-a-half years each.

Perhaps cooperating makes sense – but wait, that’s being a sucker, as your associate will surely defect, and you won’t even get the six months off. So what is the best strategy to minimize your incarceration?

Do you squeal on your associate or not? This simple question (and the implicit question of whether to trust or not), expresses a crucial issue across a broad range of life questions and talking situations.

The game’s dilemma highlights daily struggles of deciding who to support, trust, or follow. Do we try to convince to benefit ourselves to the detriment of another individual or the rest of society, or do we support the group or community to the detriment of ourselves? How do we convince? What is the best strategy to take?

The best approach

Political scientist Robert Axelrod set out to determine the best approach in the Prisoner’s Dilemma.

Axelrod solicited game theorists to compete in a Prisoner’s Dilemma tournament. The tournament’s goal was to determine the best strategy in conflicting situations.

Strategies included always looking out for your own best interests, always deferring to the other person, and all strategies in between.

Each strategy was paired with the other strategies for 200 iterations of a Prisoner’s Dilemma game. Axelrod kept score on the total points accumulated through the tournament.

A strategy called “TIT FOR TAT” (TFT) won. The strategy involves cooperating on the first move and then echoing what the other player does on every subsequent move.

The results of the tournament were analyzed and published, and a second tournament was held to see if anyone could find a better strategy. TIT FOR TAT won again.

Axelrod analyzed the results and made interesting discoveries about the nature of cooperation, which he describes in his book The Evolution of Cooperation.

Four main points

Axelrod’s book revealed four major conclusions involving game strategy.

1. Be nice. Never be the one to defect first. Many competitors went to great lengths to gain an advantage over the “nice” (and usually simpler) strategies, but to no avail: tricky strategies, fighting for a few points, generally failed compared to nice strategies. TFT (and other “nice” strategies) “won, not by doing better than the other player, but by eliciting cooperation [and] by promoting the mutual interest rather than by exploiting the other’s weakness.”
2. Be willing to respond: Being nice all the time also leads to being used, suckered, or taken advantage of in situations. Axelrod’s study shows the necessity to respond in a like manner, nice for nice and defection for defection. The key involves returning to cooperation as soon as the other person does.  Overdoing punishment causes negative escalation in the relationship and a never-ending series of defections, which leads to failure.
3. Don’t be envious: This strategy concedes that you will be no better off than the other person. This “good as the other person” strategy allowed TIT FOR TAT to always come in tied for first place regardless of the other strategy. Axelrod saw this as the ability of the person not to be envious but to accept the cooperative nature of the relationship.
4. Don’t be too tricky: Being too clever causes confusion. Clarity is essential for others to cooperate with you. Hiding or secretly manipulating leads to defections.

The four suggestions provide a speaker the ability to consistently “win” while building community and should be the heart of a talking strategy.

Winning strategy requires:

• Cooperate at the beginning and be nice. Be aware of the process. The leader’s stability sets the tone.
• Have the strength to respond in kind. Defect when they defect and cooperate when they cooperate. A leader learns to follow.
• Accept the other’s success when cooperating. True self-interest teaches selflessness  
• Trust and be trustworthy. Don’t try to outfox them. Not trusting people makes you untrustworthy.

Conclusion

A talking strategy should be a part of any winning conversation.  If you don’t take the time to plan then the outcome isn’t that important to you.

A solid talking strategy facilitates success in almost any situation. To develop sound communication tactics, keep five points in mind.

1. Stay grounded. Being a positive force requires getting yourself together. Know what you stand for in life.
2. Cooperate. People get power through cooperation and service. Working together creates synergy, influence, and capacity.
3. Simplify. Live simply. Don’t look for the benefits of more. Realize that by having enough you are truly rich.
4. Shape it. Master things by letting them go their own way. Don’t interfere; rather, shape things as they come to fit a grounded way of life.
5. Let it go.  Do your best then let go of results.  Harboring anger, animosity, or grief over what transpires in a conversation anchors you at that spot.  No growth takes place till you move on.