Many years ago, a co-ed group of a dozen budding civil servants (previously
unknown to each other) attended a two-week residential leadership training
course, with between four and six instructors. Once we'd realised (within
24 hours) that the whole event was a game with rules only the instructors
knew and controlled (i.e. a system?), the trainees started running their own
score chart (with their own rules). It was informal to start with but
generated a life of its own -- with the scores updated publicly every
evening.
Scores were available or subtracted for being late, making the instructor
stop in mid-sentence, making the group laugh, extra-curricular activities
(it was a young co-ed group), chivalrous behaviour, 'animal' behaviour
(drinking too much), and much more. Trying too hard to score points was,
however, frowned on and points were often subtracted: it smacked too much of
playing by 'the system's' rules. The actual points to be awarded were often
discussed publicly by the trainees, sometimes the instant the event
occurred, e.g. during breakfast, in the middle of an instructor's
presentation or strategy game, in the lounge at night.
Every 'game' the instructors wanted us to play became merely another
opportunity within our wider game and thus lost it's power to generate real
tension or pressure. Although every one tried to score points, including a
couple of instructors by the second week, the eventual winner (announced at
our final gathering) was the person with lowest score (a spur of the moment
decision, on the basis that life's like that, and to underline the intent
that we weren't to take it seriously). And she was a popular choice.
As far as I'm aware, only the instructors were in danger of suffering any
damage -- their stress levels climbed noticeably at one stage. It was quite
interesting when their boss was present for one particular session. ... It
was also intriguing to notice the lengths they went to try (unsuccessfully)
to find out what our scores and rules were.
We all passed the course (because points were awarded for helping each other
out where necessary) and we had a lot of fun, not so much at their expense
but rather at 'the system's' expense. We also spent a lot of time both
during and after the sessions working collaboratively on a song about the
course and its participants and events (to the tune of Bobby McGee), with
snips of lyric being passed around, edited and so on, during presentations
and strategy game sessions. The song was performed at the final gathering
and, thankfully, never again.
Yes, facilitators and trainers do have to be careful when they start playing
games -- the mice might escape. It wasn't so much a case of the games
flowing into real life. Rather life got in the way of the game.
Bevis England
>Roger Putzel's anecdote about personal tensions in The Prisoner's Dilemma
was
>illuminating and amusing. But can long lasting damage occur?
>
>The story reminded me of a paper I heard from Ken Jones at the Society for
>Interactive Learning conference in '96 (Imperial College, London, UK),
entitled
>"Damage caused by Simulations/ Games". Ken gave several examples of
>the damaging effects of "games" spilling over into "real life" and lasting
>long after the game was over. To quote his abstract
>"The human damage ranges from mild emotional hurt to severe traumas and
>even physical violence. Reputations are damaged, friendships broken and
>careers put at risk... (and).. the facilitator is not immune from the
hurt."
>
>Perhaps the key to Roger Putzel's apparently successful outcome was the
>debriefing he mentioned. Entering wholeheartedly into a game is one thing,
>emerging unharmed might be someting else. As facilitators I guess we all
need
>to be careful here.