In the first two parts of this series, I discussed the myriad of problems with the game of Monopoly and then some alternative rules that radically improve the game experience and provide for much better learning outcomes. In this final part, I will discuss the key takeaways from the new Monopoly experience. As I work with entrepreneurs, I make it a point to tell them that my goal is not just to help them to achieve great things. My goal is to achieve great things while remaining good. For this reason, I try to offer two unique “flavors” of key takeways from my learning activities: greatness and goodness.
Greatness Takeaways
1. Partnering creates success easier and faster
Playing the game with the new rules illustrates the importance of collaboration in the business community. We all get ahead faster when we find ways to share resources and allow each of us to focus on those skills that are our strengths. We should never try to create everything ourselves. Sharing lessons learned, relationships, and insights allow us all to benefit. The more we work together, the greater degree of trust between us.
2. Everyone needs help. Find people you want to work with. Go talk with them. Find ways to be helpful.
Many of us are star struck or intimidated when we run across individuals further down the road to success. I have been to many conferences and events where the expert speaker is sitting alone at a table with no one speaking to him or her. Dozens of people letting the opportunity to speak with someone who has walked your road slip away because they don’t think they have much to offer. I jump at the opportunity to chat with people who are doing the things I want to do.
I’ve had numerous conversations with successful people. I try to find ways to be helpful. No one has unlimited resources. Indeed, the scarcest resource that highly successful people have is usually time. If I can help them and free up there time a little, they appreciate it and are generous with their knowledge, expertise, and connections. Whatever goal you may have, there are top performers in your industry and they need help. Talk with them and find ways to be helpful. It’s probably the quickest way to get ahead.
3. It’s always your turn
When playing Monopoly, just because you don’t hold the dice, that doesn’t mean it’s not your turn. Events are always unfolding. Stay present. Opportunities are always emerging. Good players are constantly offering to help others. The player who can get more deals done will be on the fast track to success.
This is not just a rule for the game. It’s guidance for life. The person who helps the most, usually gains the most. You must be proactive. Find opportunities to be of value to others and you’ll be unstoppable. You will become influential, respected, and wealthy.
4. A new perspective can remake your world.
I have presented a paradigm shift that departs from Monopoly’s dysfunctional philosophy. By bringing common sense notions of teamwork and collaboration to a context that usually is dominated by antagonism, wonderful outcomes result.
This is a lesson that extends far beyond a simple game. Much innovation is a byproduct of bringing two proven ideas, which hadn’t previously been combined, together. Someone had to imagine the idea to combine a restaurant and driving to create the drive-thru window. Someone had to bring computers and cell phones together to make the smart phone. I have brought together teamwork and Monopoly to make something new and powerful.
5. If the rules of the game make you a loser, change them.
I fundamentally disagree with Monopoly’s depiction of the market and capitalism. For many years I refused to play the game because of the extent to which I detested it. As my children got older and began to ask me to play, I had a choice to make. Do I obstinately refuse to play and disappoint my kids? Or do I put up with the game, quietly loathing it the whole time, and not enjoying myself? I chose a third way. I invented a new option.
Inventing a third option cuts to the heart of what entrepreneurship is all about. Entrepreneurs never take the game as given. Entrepreneurs are ultimately creators. They make their way by ignoring conventional wisdom, questioning the status quo, and finding creative ways to transcend other people’s rules.
I don’t play games where the rules make me a loser at the outset. I change the rules. So should you.
Goodness Lessons
The first set of takeaways are wonderful lessons on how you can become more effective and successful. But achievement alone doesn’t make the world. History is replete with examples of great, but terrible figures who rained down misery and cruelty on large segments of the human race. Greatness must be paired with goodness for people to make the world better. And given the choice, being good is far more important than being great. The following are key takeaways from playing the refined version of Monopoly.
6. If no one is your adversary, you get to be good.
Our disposition toward others makes them our enemies. When I sit down at the conference table, just as I do at the game table, I look around and see the faces of potential partners, not combatants. This pushes me to search for creative ways to work together for win-win arrangements that enrich us both. When the person looking back at me is not my enemy, I take joy and satisfaction at their good fortune. I leave behind jealousy and envy. Someone else’s gain, isn’t my loss. I get to be good.
7. Through your example, bad players choose to be good.
When other players, accustomed to the traditional approach to Monopoly, see differing motivations and differing rule-based incentives, they question how they are playing the game. In a game where collaboration is rewarded, the solo-aggressor falls behind. Set a good example and people start to adopt your approach.
Again, this fact is paralleled in real life. In business, the lone-wolf gets shot. Successful people travel in packs. But there is always more room in the pack for new partners. It’s genuinely fun when the entire entrepreneurial community is working together to build a stronger, more benevolent community.
8. Working together builds trust and mutual devotion.
If you want to get to know someone, sweat beside them. Working together for a common goal brings people together like few activities can. The military sends new recruits to basic training for this reason. Basic training is physically and emotionally grueling. Men and women are pushed to the very limits of their endurance. But this is where unit trust is created. Each person must pick up the person next to him or her. All pass through moments of vulnerability and triumph. Shared struggle creates immensely strong bonds between participants.
The game, just scratches the surface of this phenomenon, but when you share your money with another player, who then later returns the favor, all the while, you together help each other become more successful, bonds of trust and devotion grow and strengthen.
9. Once you have enough, it’s easy to be generous.
In contrast to some popular narratives, individual generosity usually goes hand-in-hand with wealth. If you are struggling to put food on the table and repair the furnace, you can’t afford to be generous. The accumulation of wealth allows people to take part in the joy of philanthropy. Most people find giving away money to worthy causes to be extremely rewarding. This sensation becomes quickly obvious when playing the revised game. When you receive a couple of thousand dollars in rents every trip around the board, you feel little reluctance to pass hundreds of dollars to other players around the table in times of need.
10. You must define winning the right way.
Traditional Monopoly defines winning as crushing all the other players. Where’s the fun in that? I’d rather play a game that allows all players to win, but which allows for me to win more by helping as many people as I can. This lesson is one I carry into every business situation.
