PD

As you can imagine, that kind of manual work in the desert heat will toughen you right up. In Jr. High, I was ranked 4th in my weight class in Arizona for wrestling, I could do more one-handed pull-ups than anyone in school and could leg-press more weight than almost anyone as well. I also had a pretty stiff temper which I didn't like at all and worked very hard to control. Bullies would be stupid to pick on me. Bullies aren't known to be smart, unfortunately.

Because of my temper, I turned the other cheek when kids wanted to fight. In 6th grade, I had a bloody nose about once every week or two, and was a frequent visitor to the nurse's office. I remember once walking to the bus with my trumpet in my right hand, and my book bag over my left shoulder while a kid named Pacheco walked next to me, taunting me and hitting me in the face every few seconds trying to get me to fight.

When these things happened, and he was around, my [little] brother would intervene, and most effectively. He didn't have the same beliefs I did. I boarded the bus with a bloody face that day, as with many others.

In 8th grade (still Jr High), I'd been having a bad week, and someone picked the wrong time to start hitting me. I cleaned his clock but good. After that, the bullies gave me a wide berth.

I would remember this when, in late 2007, I attended a great class on Facilitative Leadership. It was a pilot class which I don't think took off, which was a shame because I took quite a bit out of it.

One key strategy was demonstrated by a game the presenters called "Red Chip"

Teams were given a number of white and red chips.

If all teams put in a white chip, they got another white chip from the Bank

If any team put in a red chip, they got white chips from all teams who played white chips

If all teams put in red chips, no one got any chips

What do you think happened with 6 competetive teams?

I was able to consistently convince my team to play white chips with the expectation that everyone would shortly understand cooperation would net the best reward for all players. Wealth accumulation (white chips) would be slow, but consistent. We wouldn't gain an edge over others, but we would all succeed (team player? Moi?)

Between rounds, you could try to convince other teams on what the next play should be, so we worked on getting team collaboration against the Bank.

Bzzzzz! Wrong answer, Sparky!

Since my team was effective at converting many of the other teams, when a single team played a red chip, they profited significantly. Others saw this profit and wanted in, and soon everyone was playing red chips and not profiting at all (but not declining either, which can be a short-term win).

The moral of the game is that if any team plays a red chip, you have to immediately shift your strategy to playing red chips.

This is an implementation of the Prisoner's Dilemma

The point of the training class was that, at work, there are situations where it's red chip/white chip and you need to know what's being played to succeed (not necessarily win, since if everyone plays red chips, it's a zero-sum game or maybe even negative if goals aren't being met).

At Oracle, before this training class, I worked with a particular manager who played red chip almost exclusively. I had the opportunity to red chip him one day (it would have been a fantastic move for my team and for my career), and instead chose to white chip because I wanted collaboration over competition. Yes, your childhood experiences generally do apply but you still haven't learned from them...

I later paid for that mistake as he continued to be a red chip guy, but now even more aggressively. For him, winning was being on top, not growing with others. That's when I realized my mistake and shifted to what I now recognize as a red-chip approach. Not much later, his red-chip model cost him a significant opportunity - had he cooperated with me, we both would have benefited. Instead, I ended up relatively even and he ended up with a net decline.

It was a tough lesson for both of us. Had I played red chip earlier, I could have minimized his decline and we could have begun collaborating earlier. Tough Love in a way. I don't feel responsible for his outcome, but I would do it differently if I had it to do over again, to both our benefits.

While I don't enjoy the red chip game in reality, it is an effective tool one has to learn. And, as the anecdote above demonstrates, used early, can make things better in the long run.

I still feel very strongly that my goal is to get more teams collaborating (playing white chips), but every once in a while there's a bully who needs to understand that you can play red chip too. And that might be the only way you get them to play nice with you...