Common Currency:
The Cooperative Competition Game
Is it really possible to practice the strategies of competition and cooperation at the
same time? Yes! Around the world, production teams, research and development groups, and
marketing teams all are benefiting from the power of cooperative-competition. Discover for
yourself this fresh approach to individual, team, and organizational development with
Common
Currency: The Cooperative Competition Game.
Overview
What is
cooperative-competition? When teams act with a competitive spirit that motivates
them to put forth their best efforts while cooperating on the achievement of
similar goals, you’ve got cooperative-competition. And it can give your
organization an edge over the competition. Common Currency uses the concept of
cooperative-competition among teams to stress the importance of group
interdependence. To win this game, each group must rely on collaboration with
others to exchange information and resources. Thus, teams gain an understanding
of the beneficial nature of competitiveness as they strive to do their best,
while maintaining good working relationships with other groups.
All group interactions involve
both task (outcome) and relationship (process) skills. Common Currency is an
excellent tool to address all aspects of teamwork and strategic planning,
including leadership development, open communication, conflict resolution,
principled negotiation, problem solving, managing change, and decision making.
How the game works
Teams representing fictional
countries must cooperate in trading coins and information while competing for
the most valuable combination of coins.
Participants will:
- Learn the basic principles
of cooperative-competition.
- Discover how
cooperative-competition helps teams and individuals achieve the greatest
results.
- Develop the team and
interpersonal skills that drive cooperative-competition.
- Understand how
cooperative-competition benefits the entire organization.
Change Variation Game
The concept of change and how
it affects the process of cooperative competition can be illustrated clearly
with this variation. The basic game instructions remain the same; however, teams
must deal with changes in some of the original information. The new Information
Cards affect coin combinations, bonus points, and the total number of coins
allowed in the final collection. At this time, the change variation is included
with the basic Common Currency game at no charge.
When to use Common Currency
This game is a flexible,
team-based activity that utilizes a wealth of interpersonal and group-process
skills. We especially like using it as part of negotiating and strategic
planning workshops. But it’s ideal for a wide array of training topics. The
Facilitator Guide includes debriefs for training in team building,
communication, negotiating, strategic planning, decision making, problem
solving, resource sharing, and more. Also included is a separate change module,
which demonstrates the value of cooperative-competition in times of change.
Development of the Game
The idea for Common Currency
came about as the author was exploring the effects of competition on team
building. She discovered that very few people were aware of the beneficial
nature of competition within a collaborative environment, so she decided to
create a game that would demonstrate those benefits.
The challenge was to create a
game that utilized the spirit of cooperative competition while remaining
flexible enough to meet a variety of training needs. The most important issue
during development was the use of limited resources to create a heightened sense
of competition, while utilizing a process that would require teams to
collaborate with each other. This was accomplished in two ways: first, by
providing an unequal distribution of coins, with a decreasing amount of coins as
the values increased; and second, by formulating several data "bits"
about the coins in the form of Information Cards, which players would need to
access to determine game strategies. The cards were made in duplicate to
incorporate the risk of negotiating for information that was already known.
To further limit these
resources, the coins and cards were to be randomly distributed in small portions
to each participating group. Therefore, teams would have diverse assortments of
coin values and pieces of information. In an attempt to gain the most valuable
coin collection, participants would need to cooperate within their own team as
well as negotiate with other groups for information and coins. The resulting
interactions would establish the basis for the debriefing topics.
What to Order
 Order one Complete Game (#1301KT) for up to 8 teams of 2-6 players each. For additional groups or players, order an additional game kit. The Complete Game includes: color coins, information cards, identification flags and envelopes, scoring sheets, Facilitator Guide, and sturdy tote box.
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