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Honesty/Integrity
A Perplexing Day at the Noren Video
Game Office
A
Real World Simulation Based on Real Life Events
(How Deceit Can Get Out of Hand)
Preparation:
Bring snacks, punch, cups, etc., to simulate an office party/meeting.
Introduction by Lead Teacher
(Tip:
Don’t hint that the lesson has anything to do with morals or ethical
decision-making.) Today we’ll roll play a day in your life, working at
Noren, a leading video game company. You’re 30 years old.
Divide into two teams - team one
representing Noren’s senior management
(President Janet Noren, the vice presidents, etc.) and team two representing the
new middle managers (you may manage a group of programmers or marketers or
accountants). You’re about to have your first meeting. Let’s put each team into
different rooms so that you can be briefed.
And by the way, get into your parts
and have fun with this! We’re not grading you or testing you on what you do or
say.
Team One Briefing by Teacher
Senior Management
Your Problem and How You Plan to Solve It
Your video game company is one of the
most respected in the business, but it’s a highly competitive business and your
last couple of games haven’t fared so well. If your next game fails, your
company could go broke.
Fortunately, you’ve created an awesome
new game that comes out this summer. The timing is critical, since it’s
competing against the popular game Halo and you don’t want your launch to
compete with Halo’s latest version which comes out at Christmas.
Everything’s riding on getting this game
out successfully by this summer.
Are you following so far? (Allow them
to ask questions.)
But there’s a problem - a big problem.
You’re short of money.
To complete the game by this summer,
you need money from investors to be able to hire enough programmers to finish
the game. Problem is, if you report last year’s financial losses, investors will
hesitate to invest and you won’t have the money to complete the new game.
Are you still following?
Your only solution for saving the
company is to get creative with your accounting. You know a few technically
legal loopholes. You decide that although the new game isn’t ready yet, you can
claim that it’s already worth one billion dollars to the company, since it will
make that much easily once it’s released. So “technically” your company is
already worth a billion dollars more than it was the year before, even though
the product hasn’t yet been released.
So you plan to report to the public
that your company, instead of losing money last year, actually grew in worth,
making it look more attractive to investors. With their investment, you can get
your game out by summer, make your tidy billion dollars and everybody will be
happy.
So here’s your task:
when the new middle management people
meet with you, get them to sign the accounting documents.
(Discuss this for a moment, letting
everyone ask questions, to make sure everyone understands this.)
How You Plan to Convince the Middle Management to Sign On
So in five minutes the new middle
managers arrive for the meeting. What do you think will be their main
objections? How can you overcome those objections? How will you convince them to
sign on?
(Let the students discuss this freely.
Here are some tips if they pull a blank or run out of ideas.):
·
Peer pressure (“We’ve all as senior management
reflected on this for some time and decided that it’s both ethical and right for
the company.”)
·
Appealing to what’s best for their loved ones (“With
the increasing costs of the best schools, I’m sure you know how important this
is for your families.”)
·
Appealing to their need for money (“When this game
makes its billions, there will be $100,000 bonuses for each of you under the
Christmas tree, which could go a long way toward paying off your houses and
paying for your children’s schooling.”)
·
Appealing to their company camaraderie (Spend
the first part of the meeting shaking hands, asking about their families and
hobbies, telling about what a great “family” the business is.)
·
Pressuring them with limited time so that they don’t think it through.
(“So let’s get this signing out of the way so that we can pour the punch, serve
the sandwiches, and plan our summer launch. I’ll be the first to sign.”)
·
Make them overlook the importance of it by having them to sign several other
forms regarding other things.
Team Two Briefing by Teacher Assistant
Middle Management
(Meeting at the same time as Team One)
Each of you are of course unique, but
here’s an example employee that fits most of you. Imagine yourself in this part
and try to play in character when you meet the upper management.
You’ve completed your education in
rare form, some graduating Harvard and earning your Masters degree,
valedictorian (top grades of your class) from Columbia University. You marry the
spouse of your dreams and start the job of your dreams - working your way up
through one of the most respected video game companies in Silicon Valley, near
San Francisco.
The boss recently promoted you to
middle management, the youngest to rise so far so quickly. You really needed the
promotion badly. Your oldest child is old enough for school and you need to move
into the best school district, but houses there average $750,000. Without the
raise, your children would be in poor, even dangerous schools.
You’re about to go into your first
meeting with the senior management. Just act like it’s a real business meeting,
with the introductory chit-chat. Get to know each other, etc. Get into your
part, play along and see how it goes. You’re
30 years old, have a great family, a great job, and now you get to hang out with
the big boys and girls at one of the world’s top gaming companies.
Any questions? Enjoy the punch!
The Meeting
Allow them to start with general chit
chat among themselves, getting to know each other. After a bit, President Noren
dings on a glass to call the meeting to order. She welcomes the new management.
The senior management each welcomes the newcomers and mentions that there are a
few formalities - papers to be signed, etc., so that they can bring out the
punch and continue with the party. (If the president wants the teacher to
explain the accounting issue, he might call on her, in order to make sure the
basics are explained properly. After explaining, ask the other group if they
have any questions. (If nobody on team one asks any questions, perhaps the
teacher assistant can question the proposal to get the ball rolling.) Any
members of team one can respond to any questions they might have.
(Who knows how the discussion will
end. You might want to end the meeting before anyone has a chance to sign, so
that everyone saves face. We just want everyone to feel the pressure.)
Debriefing
If you like where we’re going, I’ll
fill out the rest of this - the ensuing discussion, paralleling it with the
Enron scandal. (Noren is an anagram for Enron, putting the same letters in a
different order.)
1. What you just experienced were some
of the tough decisions you’ll probably have to make in real life, and some of
the pressures involved. Let’s discuss what you felt. Was the issue black and
white, or gray? In what ways did you feel pressure? Do you think the average
person would have signed, refused to sign, or asked for more time?
2. Has anyone ever heard of any people
in the news who have gotten in trouble for these very issues?
4. Who all might be affected if your
video company game flopped? (Private investors, public investors, your wife,
your children, etc.)
5. If they’ve never heard of the
Enron scandal, brief
them on it, since it was very similar to our simulation. (You might use clips
from the
documentary on Enron’s rise and fall.) Many of the executives went to prison
and shareholders lost their money as Enron collapsed. 20,000 Enron employees
lost their jobs. Investors lost billions. Many lost their retirement and life
savings.
6. What personal consequences might
you risk?
7. Do you think the Enron scandal was
a matter of lack of education, of stupidity, or something else? The leaders were
brilliant, but they lacked a moral compass. Here are three of the top leaders at
Enron.
·
Kenneth Lay: Held a PhD
in economics. Died of a heart attack while awaiting sentencing.
·
Jeffrey Skilling:
Held a Masters degree from Harvard Business School. He’s serving 24 years in
prison and should be out by age 82. His youngest son was found dead last year
from a drug overdose.
·
Clifford Baxter: Graduated from New York University, then completed a
Masters degree at Columbia University, valedictorian of his class. He committed
suicide in 2002 at the age of 43.
8.
What could keep us from making bad decisions in our businesses?
·
Determine to never make
big decisions without having full information and the time to reflect upon it.
·
Always ask for the advice
of people you trust.
·
Set yourself some life
absolutes: I will not lie. I will not cheat. Etc.
9. Why is integrity important to a business?
10. Why is integrity important to a marriage? (The first time
you get caught lying, everything you say from then on becomes suspect. You lose
trust.)