Remember that work, life, politics are not games of perfect information

Game theorists distinguish between games of perfect information, like chess, checkers and go, and games of imperfect information, such as poker or backgammon. They use these terms to signal whether there are any externalities involved, any randomness, any luck. For example, in poker the order of the cards in the deck is random and unknown to the players. In backgammon, the players throw dice, and don’t know where they will land in advance. On the other hand, in chess, there is no external element, nothing hidden. The only information is the board position. While I completely get that, and it changes game playing strategy quite a bit, I also sort of disagree. In chess, what is hidden is what is inside your opponent’s head. What their strategy is, what they know, what they care about, how much energy they have. When we think about the ‘games’ of our life, business, politics, we have to remember that there are at least four reasons they are not games of perfect information. 1. There are externalities. Depending on which ‘game’ we are talking about, it could be the weather, interest rates, regulatory changes. Things outside our circle of influence or control. 2. We don’t know what is going on inside our opponents’ or other stakeholders’ heads. 3. A corollary of the second, we can’t take another player’s moves at face value, because most games involve multiple moves/ rounds. Opponents may pretend to go one way to fool us, then go another etc. 4. We have to remember that no one is just playing one game, either at the same time, or over time. When we play a game, that has effects on our other/ future games. Sometimes we may choose to lose to win later. Etc. I don’t like to read or write about politics on LinkedIn. I will never mention Donald Trump for example. (Whoopsie.) But when I was writing this, one of the things I was thinking about is that it is helpful not to think of the current US administration’s strategies in overly direct and simplistic ways. More generally, we can all thrive/ win in games of imperfect information, but it helps a lot if we remember the imperfections as we plan. #unthink #unask #unlearn #strategy #gametheory #trump