3b Cooperation

Cooperation

Cooperation is the process of working together, side by side. It is what is needed to achieve world peace. Robert Axelrod (1984) identified the importance of cooperation in that you receive the maximum benefit when you cooperate with others. Game theory is all about maximising your options so you get the best possible outcome whilst minimizing the risk. In finance it would be all about maximising profit whilst minimizing the risk. So in our professional practice it is about maximising the outcome of meeting people in order to build our network. The Prisoners Dilemma can be explained in terms of cooperation as below:

Person A & Person B cooperate = win, win
Person A cooperate, Person B defect = A loose much, B win much
Person A defect, Person B cooperate = A win much, B loose much
Person A & Person B defect = loose, loose

I help understand further, I took four of my friends and rated them in terms of value to my professional network, with 5 being the highest.
Person 1- My best friend, also a dancer in the business (2)
Person 2- Friend who works onboard the QE2 (5)
Person 3- Unemployed friend (0)
Person 4- Promotional girlfriend (2)

The outcome is that I could cooperate with a combination of all of them or dedicate most of my time to 1 person with the highest value but outcome would only be value 5!  We also must take into perspective the different values itself and that whole some people I might value a lot higher in terms of professional practice there may be others that I talk to all the time that are not so high. It is probably best to spend most time with the top two for maximum benefit. It is a complex mathematical theory that Axelrod presents it is about working out our prioritises in life and how best to utilize our time.

With such competition in the field of the arts (and other businesses) and more dancers around than jobs cooperation can help us go the extra mile. Being great at networking can help us get a step up. Contacts can come from anywhere at anytime so it is important to be polite and nice to everyone you meet. If you make a bad impression they are not going to want to help you out. I think we always need to be open to making new connections with people to maximize the outcome. But once we make the connections we must maintain them.

My fiance got his current work position because a couple of his friends from college are managers in the company. By being friends with the manager he got a promotion this year. Managers like to get on with their employees. Likability factor can determine whether you land a job or not. Going back to my dad as I mentioned before he often interviews candidates from Oxford and Cambridge University with all the top grades but without being a people's person you won't make it in the company. Cooperation is key in getting on in life. If we are very willing to work with others we will be viewed as a team player ensuring positive work relations but if you are uncooperative people will view you as unable to work with others.