Leaders aren’t typically known for playing games, but maybe it’s time they should, at least this one. It’s called the World Peace Game, and if you’re a leader with even the slightest interest in adaptability, resilience or how to grow the value of something, it’s time you had a look.
On its surface alone, two things immediately stand out. First, in no small way, the game is about dealing with uncertainty. The World Peace Game’s version takes the form of a hands-on political simulation made up of dozens of complex and interlocking problems — actual real-world problems that inhibit actual world peace. Within the game, players take on the roles of countries, international bodies, forces of nature and even ambiguity itself. Their objective is to solve every interlocking problem while leaving no player worse off at the end than they were at the start. The second and more bracing fact? The game was designed to be played by fourth graders.
Before you scoff at any of this or its relevance, you should know that the World Peace Game’s nine and ten-year-old players have more than once been invited to the Pentagon alongside the game’s creator, John Hunter, to consult with the secretary of defense and its generals about what they might learn from these short-in-stature but long-on-wisdom preteen leaders. If you’re a senior leader, those facts alone should have you asking, “What could this game teach me about how to lead better?”
A different view of leadership in uncertainty
Leading at any time is hard, but leading in uncertain times demands a new view. Uncertainty is every leader’s new abnormal, and in that unfamiliar terrain, the message is clear: What worked in the past won’t work now. What that means is that it’s high time you stopped looking in the usual places and to the usual suspects for leadership guidance.
Even before you play it, the World Peace Game offers you a fresh perspective simply by learning how it’s played. One awakening is learning who leads. Though the grown-ups (teachers and school administrators) choose the game, once the basic guidelines for play have been shared, the kids take over. You heard right. Those who by default and title typically lead literally step back and rely on those on the front lines to create, collaborate and solve. Across an intense week of play, the kids not only direct the game, they do it exceptionally, not just solving the challenges presented, but remarkably finding different ways to solve them every time.
The flipping of roles offers a powerful and uncommon chance for everyone to see bigger. It causes both students and teachers to revisit well-worn habits and see through new eyes. The approach quite naturally expands critical and creative thinking while supplanting black-and-white assumptions with a mindset of “what if …” There are countless other advantages and insights the game offers, yet even this one example alone stands in marked contrast to most real-world leadership. More than just a game, Hunter accurately describes it as “a flexible, renewable practice.”
The game teaches so much more, with many of those lessons easily gleaned by watching Hunter’s first TED Talk or reading his wonderfully titled book, World Peace and Other Fourth Grade Achievements. But whether you look further into this powerful game or not, there’s one lesson that must be shared here and now. It’s a lesson every leader in this new abnormal needs to embrace – not someday, but right now.
The lesson of collective wisdom
In a recent conversation, Executive Director of the World Peace Game Foundation Robin Klingler offered what just might be the most vital lesson the game shares. To her, it’s foundational and something she stays in touch with every day. Yet for many leaders, it’s a lesson overlooked and undervalued. “The Game doesn’t work without collective wisdom,” Klingler remarked. What’s obvious to her is hidden in plain sight for many leaders, in part because, despite these deeply uncertain times, we still carry around the mythology that leadership and the individual leader are one in the same. It’s never been true, but in an uncertain world, holding onto that expectation is a dangerous strategy.
The key to comfort with the unknown
More than just an insight about the World Peace Game, Klingler’s observation may just be the best advice any leader on any front can embrace if thriving in uncertain times is their goal. Indeed, collective wisdom and the range of knowledge and experience it implies have repeatedly been shown, including by Harvard Business Review, to make teams smarter, more resilient and perhaps most vital in uncertain times, “more likely to constantly reexamine facts and remain objective.” In short, more than a nice aphorism, Klingler’s insight is the fulcrum for the change leaders need and the key to the lasting success they seek. As Hunter says, the game is ultimately about learning to live and work comfortably in the unknown. Without collective wisdom, it’s a pretty tough lesson to master.
Opinions expressed by SmartBrief contributors are their own.
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