We all play strategy games in life. Some wise people for the planning’s in life while other for fun. Who is the winner of the game is decided by the way you take steps and decision in these games. Same goes for the war games! The winner of the war games is just because of the right decisions! You must be thinking that we’re discussing pretty much simple things! Right, a latest research from Harvard Business Review shows some of the simplest but interesting facts.
You might have seen groups in colleges and universities. These groups of the people are due to some common traits and habits. You can split different groups of people in so many ways. Just for sake of an example, let’s say Good and bad people. These are two kind of groups. Now, what makes you decided whether the group is good or bad? This is based on your observations, your thoughts and your strategy!
In the research form HBR, they have categorized a sample of people into groups based on their response to some questions. The people, obviously had different responses which were
- I already know
- Now, I know
- I don’t know
- I guessed
The first two groups were called very confident people as we expect. The other two groups of people were called unsure people. This is very simple right? Yes, let’s know something strange. The people of the fourth category with “I guessed” were called the fast people. These answers were from best gamers, executives, professors and students. The researcher left out the fourth category because of the fact that they are too fast or too lazy to care about the real life happenings. And the others were analyzed.
What’s next? Results …
The participants had different opinions.
- Those who took fast decisions said they were very confident
- Those with slow decision also said that they were very confident
Who is your winner? Guess from the first three categories! The research winners were the people with “I don’t know” answers! Strategy games start from I don’t know and then they end on war games with strategic planning. Don’t you think so?
According to the researcher, there are possible a lot of reason behind the success of “I don’t know” people. He said that may be any of the following reasons is affecting the results.
- Age factor : Confidence increases with age
- Gender difference: females are less confident sometimes.
But Mark Chussil (CEO of Advanced Competitive Strategies, Inc.) said that he had not enough sample to study the above two hypothesis but what he found was that people who says that they don’t know usually prove to be good strategists. Strategy games takes time for planning and same goes for the war games.
Slow deciders take time and plan things well, the research suggests. But it’s a small research on a few dozens of people. May be the results change with increasing sample size. Strategy games and war games players will take good decisions in real life because of the fact that they do planning’s and take time for decisions.
Conclusion
Slow deciders who takes time are the best strategists in strategy games, war games and real life as well!
Credits: Harvard Business Reviews
