Come on MYKI you just won the negociation by a mile, how could it have been someone else's master strategy
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NG1 - St Francis Hospital - Game thread
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February 15th, 2017, 18:32
(This post was last modified: February 15th, 2017, 20:50 by vnosikov.)
And what is even better, MYKI even didn't need to negotiate a lot to get such a nice for him outcome
That's why he is a boss. On the other hand, I am the one who forged this agreement, which is rather sad for me. I think my skills of roleplaying a merciless financial director are even worse than the actual outcome :-)
February 15th, 2017, 18:34
(This post was last modified: February 16th, 2017, 09:44 by Bacchus.)
The air was thick with anxiety at St Francis as the deadline for a submission to the board drew near. Everyone knew that on Thursday the managers will take a decision that would almost certainly overhaul the hospital and its practices. In the end, the tension proved too much. Marshall gave in first, he bloody well wasn't leaving this to chance, and already on Monday he cornered Parker next to a watercooler and directly asked if Parker would ever support MMM. So began three frantic days of backroom politicking, interrupted only by a fire alarm. Even Bennett realised that the decision will be made long before any general meeting and jumped right into the secret talks. By then, it was clear that MMM will be expanding, but slowly and with amends, and now everyone quickly learned that they better support Bennet's sovereign right to distribute money within the hospital as he sees fit. Some chafed at this, Marshall outright threatened Bennett with a coalition that would advise the Board bypassing him entirely, but all eventually bowed to the CEO's will.
All of a sudden, on Wednesday, a deal was reached on the remaining two issues. No compromise could be found, but MacNamara, Mason, Bennett and Marshall all signed up to a deal, and ended the discussion a full day ahead of schedule. The senior physicians, led by Parker, faced the fact of administrative control over them and no immediate improvement to their facilites. Many would leave St Francis, Parker already was packing his things. As Bennet went past Parker's emptying office, he shrugged -- the money would stay in his hands, the delay to MMM's expansion was unfortunate, but palatable, and he even retained the lead over training, not at all something he expected to walk away with. Based on everyone's feedback, let's call it a day. I am very interested in detailed responses from you guys -- what went well, what could be improved, will you play again? To me, this turned out much better than I expected, we've had no roll out or logistical screw ups, which is always nice. You can download the full set of materials here: http://www.pon.harvard.edu/shop/st-franc...cal-model/, the Teacher's Package is free, all you have to do is register. Here are the lists of acceptable options for each party, ranked by preference, stars mark the "barely acceptable" Mason = [ac, ab*, cbd*, 314*] MacNamara = [bcd, ca*, ad, 241*] Parker = [dc*, bc*, cad*, 3*1*4*] Bennett = [acb*, ca*, dc*b*a*, 4] Marshall = [ac*, abc*, bdc*, 134*] As you can see, the preferences and negotiating positions are really assymetric, some roles are stronger than others, so it's difficult to say who "won". I can tell you that there is no 5-way agreement unless someone goes for an "unacceptable" option, and there are only two possible 4-way agreements under the same condition -- the one you've reached and CCD4 excluding Mason. The real sticking point is issue 2 -- neither MacNamara nor Bennet will accept decisions being made by physicians alone, which means that either Mason or Parker will have to be excluded or go "unnacceptable" on the issue. If people can be convinced to do so, CBD4 becomes a possible 5-way agreement, with MacNamara and Bennett taking a hit on issue 2. Similarly, these are possible 4-way agreements with players being prepared to go "unacceptable" on their least important issue: [{'c'}, {'b'}, {'d'}, {'4'}] - excluding MacNamara (as you can see, MacNamara is in a very strong negotiating position as excluding her doesn't open options) [{'c'}, {'b'}, {'d'}, {'1' OR '4'}] - excluding Bennett [{'c'}, {'a' OR 'b'}, {'d'}, {'4'}] - excluding Parker [{'c'}, {'b'}, {'d' OR 'c'}, {'4'}] - excluding Marshall [{'c'}, {'b' OR 'c'}, {'d'}, {'4'}] - excluding Mason I have some other comments on the course of the negotiation that I can make tomorrow. But for now, some things to discuss -- what was your strategy? where did you get stuck? how did you get unstuck?
I don't have time to write down my thoughts tonight, but if I have one comment to make it's that the one thing that threw me off was how Bennett wouldn't accept anything other than IV-4. I really didn't expect that, hence why I thought we had found a good solution with CAD1, giving Bennett II-A and III-D. As it turns out Bennett didn't really want II-A, which was part of the problem.
I'll write more tomorrow.
February 15th, 2017, 23:20
(This post was last modified: February 15th, 2017, 23:25 by vnosikov.)
Ok, so here is my feedback, how the game went. My initial strategy was to focus on issue I, that was described as most important for me and also fight for issure IV that was described as second-important. For issue I there were two options for me: I and C, and C was barely acceptable. That's why I immediately started to talk with Parker as he was obviously the main dissenter to know if it is possible to get him on I-A. I found out that he'll oppose it. Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to talk with McNamara so the whole Monday and a part of Tuesday I was under an illusion that obtaining I-A is possible.
Monday evening I spoke with Bennett, who insisted on IV-4, the choice which was barely acceptable for me. I became sad by this news, still I hoped that I can get I-A so I'll be fine. Stupid hopes: in the end I will not only get I-C AND IV-4, but I will also push this deal forward! But at Monday I was still in the realm of sweet dreams. At Tuesday after a fire drill mpre talks happened. I was told what is McNamara's position and realized that I-A will never happen. That also makes me a little paranoid, I feared the exclusion. My response to this threat was quite weird, I thought a lot about possible coalitions and suddenly that train of thoughts spontanously entered the converstaions with my esteemed colleagues. I suppose it looked funny and/or strange. Also came the understanding that IV-4 is inevitable. This is the only option for Bennett and second-best for McNamara (whose first-best was unacceptable for me). So even if we excluded Bennett, McNamara would have no incentives to change her position on the issue (because without her C**4 is the only thing we can get). This discovery makes me very pessimistic: it ensured that I can get only barely acceptable options on both of my most important issues. But also I realized, that McNamara is the key player, whose support is mandatory on any deal I hope to achieve. I suppose this discovery was crucial to the whole game dynamics. Wednesday morning I left a long message for her, where I described my logic. Funny but it looked that Gavagai at that point didn't realize the strength of his position. Though he didn't hesitate to lie to me and I am still impressed by his nerve. Anyway there were a lot of whining and backing and filling from my side. It looked clearly that the two acceptable outcomes for me were CAD4 and CCD4 - the first one was marginally better. Still I felt a lot of pain to accept this: only one issue, which is less important for me went my way, on the third-important issue I got only second option and everything else was barely acceptable. In CCD4 I would get three barely acceptable options out of four, so it looked like a total disaster. I didn't understand than, that designers made this game so asymetric. It was impossible for my character to get a "good" deal, no matter what (actually only one possible agreement from Bacchus's list was better for me then what I get, and it could happen only if somebody agreed to something unacceptable and I highly doubt that would be possible). On the other side Bennett for example will get a good deal almost automatically. I also believed that for McNamara this deal will better that it actually was, so that made me even more envious. But I saw that the alternative was even worse. That's almost the end of a story. McNamara tried to persuade Parker, I aproached Mason and he agreed to such a deal. Everything happened very quickly. I think it was tough for Dr. Parker: the minute ago he just spoke with McNamara and then all out of a sudden the deal is made and he is forced to leave. I think I can call myself the architect of this deal. It came from a clear understanding that only C**4 is possible and that to ally with McNamara is mandatory. I also persuaded Mason to join us. Still I had mixed feelings about it. Only when I read a debrief I understood that actually I made it all right. I think it was one of the designer's intentions to show that to make a deal you should care more about alternatives than about your wishes. As I already told, I enjoyed the game a lot. I think I will play it again, but some time should pass. I think that the room system was not always convenient. Sometimes you wanted just to leave a short question, but your partner is unavailable. True, you can leave a message in a room, but what will happen if in the same time you want to speak with somebody else? As far as I understand Bacchus made it this way so that we couldn't have multiple parallel secret meetings, and there is some logic in this. Though the necessity to enter a room just to ask something short made me to evade this short questions and it was a minor trouble. Also I am contemplating, was it really a good idea to discuss everything secretly? Yes I actually gained on this, if for example Parker understood the importance of McNamara he could access her earlier than I did and forged a worse plan for me. But maybe some public discussion actually could move the agreement process forward quicker, easier (all this private talks made me tired fast) and in a more predictable way? That's an interesting question that we could discuss. Thanks Bacchus for providing us with this game and flavour texts, thanks Gavagai for an invite and thanks everyone for your participation! I had a lot of fun and hope to play it once again.
It's time for some post game thoughts.
First, thanks Bacchus for organizing this. It was fun ! I may participate in future negotiation games. Now about the negotiations themselves here's how I went into the game : My character was very anti-nurses, with flat refusals to accept the pro-nurses options of II-C, III-A and IV-2. So at first my idea was to try to find common ground with Parker on something we both could accept and that the CEO and CFO could also accept. The discussion didn't go too well, but at the end of it I still thought that was possible. We ended up thinking about a sort of CBC3, which I think could have evolved into a CBC1 or maybe even into a CBC4 that could have worked. Also this is the only time in the whole game where I flat out lied to someone. I wanted II-A more than II-B but I thought that my only chance of getting Parker to my side was to make him thought I was on his side on issues II III and IV. My meeting with Marshall went mostly as expected : we had very convergent PoVs. It cristalized the idea of ending with IV-1, which was fine by me. Then the turning point was my two meetings with MacNamara, which I thought went rather well (I'll need to read what Gavagai told vnosikov, because I certainly didn't think we had a "rough discussion" as vnosikov later said). The first meeting was where I explained Gavagai where my limits where (it didn't go very well), and the second one was where Gavagai proposed the CAD1 option. That was IMO the cornerstone of the final deal. Gavagai made the concession of going CAD, which turned me around from trying to craft a deal with Parker to one with MacNamara. And at the time I thought it would be acceptable by everyone but Parker. That's part of why I didn't talk to Parker after that. There was a good enough option on the table which I wanted to explore before looking elsewhere. Of course then came Bennett, who insisted on IV-4. At first I thought it was unacceptable and thought about looking for a deal without him, but I then realized that pushing my last important issue from second favorite to third favorite was not a big deal. So after talks with Marshall (about Bennett), Bennett, then Marshall again, the deal went through. After reading vnosikov's account I think the good relations between Gavagai and him is part of why this went so smoothly. So kudos to you two. I find it interesting that the only other option without people accepting "unnacceptable" choices is CCD4 which excluded me. I think the reason why no one seemed to go this way (I need to read discussions between Parker and Macnamara to be sure) is that it's barely acceptable to Parker, who doesn't get a single favorite option out of it.
Yes that does seem to have worked out rather well for the CEO - the asymmetry is slightly disappointing, as is the fact that that I could have done literally nothing and still have probably ended up with my first choice for issues III and IV and my second choice for issue I.
Still, that does not detract from the enjoyment, and I guess that it is a reflection of the real world. If you were trying to put numbers to the outcome to work out a game winner the solution would probably be to reward Parker (for example) much more strongly for anything he managed to achieve. It would also be fun to add a couple of other dynamics, like Bennet wanting Parker's agreement on the final outcome, or MacNamara wanting Mason to be excluded from any deal. That could add some balance, and some further realism as well. Also brutality. Not knowing how good I had it, and given that there was only one non-unacceptable outcome for my most important issue (IV-4), my strategy had been just to give everyone the clear message that all I cared about was getting IV-4. If I could push people towards other favourable outcomes then so much the better (and it rapidly became apparent that I-C was pretty much guaranteed), but the message was that I'd sign anything with a 4 at the end. From the description my hope was that it wouldn't be too controversial, and I thought this approach would stick more easily in everyone's mind than something more nuanced, but having achieved it I thought my negotiating position would be too weak to push for anything more. My fear was a coalition being built around ***1, a fear that was given wings by the fact that my first meeting was with Marshall, who was not keen on IV-4, and that the first agreement to be posted in red ended with a 1. I enjoyed the room system, felt it was effective, thematic and probably quite amusing for onlookers, but vnosikov is right - if there was a convenient way to leave short secret messages things could have been more efficient. Maybe the solution would be to have a couple more rooms and the option to be in more than one at the same time. And I wonder what difference it would have made if I'd just announced on the public board that I would sign anything that went ***4. Timing wise, the Wednesday finish didn't seem rushed, even with the fire drill. And I'm not sure how much an extra day of frenzied meetings would have added. But I guess that if people had been a bit busier irl we would have needed the whole allowance. Thank you Bacchus for putting this all together and broadening our horizons. And thank you everyone else for committing to this so wholeheartedly - I enjoyed it a lot, and would happily play something like this again. (February 15th, 2017, 18:34)Bacchus Wrote: Here are the lists of acceptable options for each party, ranked by preference, stars mark the "barely acceptable" My notes say [dc*, bc*, cad*, 3*1*4*], with issue priority II, I, III, IV. I'll have more thoughts later on how it went, but I hope no-one took any offence from the things I said while role-playing a curmudgeonly stick-in-the-mud old has-been. 
I now realize that I screwed you over Rho, with my lie about wanting II-B. It made you think you could try to push it through (because I would support you and refuse deals that didn't include it) when in fact your best option was to accept that II-B would never happen and push for II-C. Sorry about that.
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