AMP Treatise

The majority of Orientation was based on team building and a concerted effort to "break" our competitive spirit but using very effective, if devious, methods. Everyone at this school and all top MBA business schools has gotten there by being competitive and especially for Westerners its been part of our lives since pretty much the beginning. So the school realizes this is a problem since, at least during the program, they want us to work together and not against each other and the result is this Orientation.

Day 1 was simply, basically identifying your personality and putting it together with your group members (which are assigned, one International student for every group).

Day 2 was more interesting. There were 3 games, Win As Much As You Can, Cave Rescue, and 5 Tricks.

• 5 Tricks: You all sit in your new group and are given a sheet of paper with instructions for a card game, a little like Hearts but much simpler. So you have 10 minutes to learn and practice it, then the real game starts and the twist is there is NO talking. So you play for 10 minutes and the 2 winners go one table forward and the 2 losers go backwards to another table. The rest stay put. So effectively, the next round has 6 people from 3 different groups. You start playing and you quickly realize that some people didn't really understand the rules and the result is general, albeit silent, chaos. Tempers flared, people threw up their hands in frustration, and some laughed. Afterwards, it was revealed that every table had been given a slightly different set of rules for the game and the morale of the story was that in International business, everyone comes to the table with a different set of cultural rules and expectations.
• Cave Rescue: Here you are given the profiles of six people stuck in a cave and you have to evaluate who to rescue first, one at a time. All different nationalities, race, sex, and age. Some were outstanding citizens, some were "losers" and some had great social benefits to society but weren't necessarily good people. The idea here was that different people set different priorities for who they would rescue first, the Chinese generally preferring the rescue the old, then women, then men. I finished my individual rankings in 5 minutes but it was funny watching the Chinese really trying hard for the full 20 minutes looking for the "right" answer.
• Win As Much As You Can: Basically a game theory excersize. You picked an X or a Y and what the four partners at each table collectively picked (without talking to each other) determined the pay-out of money. YYYY meant $1 for everyone while XXXX meant -$1 for everyone. The trick is that if you're selfish, you pick X but if everyone can pick Y you get a good payout. However, all it takes is one person to pick X and they get $3 while all the Y's then lose $1. So its based on trust and all that. The group I was in quickly resorted to backstabbing and dishonesty!

More on the real trick game later.