The Game of (Business) Life

In John Conway's Game of Life, a graphical simulation game, complex life-like behaviour emerges from a set of very simple rules. It's mesmerizing to watch simulations of these rules, and see the intricate patterns that spontaneously develop, ranging from reproduction and movement, to oscillation and infinite growth. Two travellers repeatedly move back and forth between barriers, while shooting off a steady stream of floaters whenever they collide. Sophisticated behaviours emerge and the graphical objects demonstrate different strategies for surviving within the system of rules. If you change the rules, those same strategies no longer work, and different strategies must emerge.

The same idea repeats in the Game of Business Life, in the way things happen within our organizations and communities:

1. We set up an environment with a bunch of rules.

2. We let people exist in this environment for a while.

3. Stable behaviours spontaneously develop that help people survive in this environment.

In Saskatoon, landfill rates have been increasing to reflect increasing costs. The idea is to pass the costs of running the landfill on to those who actually use it. Unfortunately, a different behaviour emerges as people seek ways to thrive in this system of rules. Instead of hauling things to the dump, a chronic problem has emerged as people dump appliances, chemicals, building materials and garbage in the ditches and sloughs surrounding the city.

This free dumping behaviour naturally emerges from higher landfill rates, but it's obviously not desirable. From one slough by our acreage, we've hauled out a mattress, a basketball net, a barbeque, car tires, bundled tree branches, shingles, lumber with nails sticking out, a dishwasher, and an organ. We recently had our dogs covered in sticky black tar that someone dumped in the water, requiring a trip to the vet to sedate them and clean the tar off their fur.

Similarly (except for the sedation part), service reps in a call center were rewarded based on how many calls they handled. The idea was to encourage employee eagerness to handle customer calls, to improve service. The actual behaviour that emerged was a dramatic shortening in average call time, as service reps routinely ended calls early and transfered them to someone else, allowing them to handle more calls but also resulting in much poorer service and unhappy customers. This emergent behaviour allowed them to maximize their income and avoid their manager's criticism and was a natural response to the environment.

As leaders, we create the environment, with rules and measurements and rewards. Our people adapt to this environment and adopt behaviours that are "natural" for the system of rules we've set up - behaviours that allow them to thrive and survive. Leaders then struggle to foster other, more-desirable behaviours, but since they're unnatural for the system, they require constant scrutiny and constant input of energy and effort to maintain.

Given an environment of pay, reward and reporting, people will adapt their behaviours to survive in that environment. How much easier it is when the environment fosters the behaviours that we actually want.