Episode 8: Winning stupid prizes for stupid games
On competitive advantage and systematic ways to erode self-respect
I was in a Negotiations class this spring semester. At first, I resented signing up for it because it felt like one of those fluffy people-skills classes whose value to me was hard to quantify. The structure of the class was as follows: every Tuesday/Thursday we'd show up, get assigned into random sub-groups with a specific case for the day, and then negotiate our (sometimes adversarial) terms based on our role assignment.
The exercises build on collaborative tactics as the semester progresses, and our class in particular, even had a FINRA arbitration. This is a particular kind of lawsuit wherein we consulted with real lawyers on how to formulate our negotiating strategies. We also had genuine external arbitrators hear our arguments and serve judgment.
In retrospect, I think Negotiations is one of the few classes at Wharton that builds relational skill by force, which I have found to be severely lacking in many contexts at this school. But just as the Admissions Committee knows how to pick them, so the Academic Resources intend to correct them. Though my particular section of the class had more reading than the others, I could still appreciate how we were forced to mingle and experiment with different styles of asking people for consensus and agreement.
And not all of it was smooth sailing. There were definitely difficult emotional stakes in some of the conversations. Sometimes the adversarial persona can be hard to detach from the person deemed as adversary. Some classmates took the opportunity to push themselves out of their shell. Some absolutely needed to tone down their fetish for playing every possible 90's-media-mob-banker-lord-NYC-hypermasculine archetype. I'm specifically speaking to this one guy in my class who built a reputation around being particularly aggressive about closing deals and was incredibly smug about how much he could "win" over the opposition. Even in the collaborative exercises, he was rumored to continue to maintain his aggressive advantage, and very few people enjoyed being paired with his energy or tolerating it.
At the end of every class, we were required to share our numbers on the classroom whiteboard so that the class could see the range at which the deals closed. Those who made excellent deals would get extra credit. This man constantly gloated about his numbers, and arguably, he had had every reason to do so. But the constant alienation of peers bleeds outside of the classroom very quickly. As in sex, people can tell when a choice made during role play goes too far, and if the choice has particularly unpleasant aftereffects, it eats into your reputation. After class, nobody seemed to invite him to lunch or linger for conversation.
In my particular section, we were required to vote for the top five classmates who we believed were the best negotiators. The winner, who would be announced on our final day of class, would receive a hand-held glass plaque engraved with "Best Negotiator Award" and then we would all partake in professor-sponsored pizza at the sacred hour of 11:30AM, and rejoice. The top three winners would also receive extra credit in some way, and get to bask in the appreciation of their classmates.
Consider whether such an outcome is worth competing for. No, really, consider. There are no measurable damages to not achieving this exalted prize. Winning such a trophy at best is a matter of pride for your bookshelf, loved ones, a photo or two on instagram and if you're truly insufferable, you make a Linkedin post. Something along the lines of being Honored and Humbled to Be The Best Negotiator At Wharton, a Dream™ That You Had When You Were Four™ or whatever.
So why did this man, who spent an entire semester souring relationships with everyone, individually text every single classmate he had ever directly negotiated with and ASK to be voted in, on the night before the final class?
Consider the factors that influence this mystery. This man is a high-achieving individual in his late twenties, with at least one Ivy League degree already under his belt and a second underway. He has worked at least 5-ish years at a well-known bank, so he has experienced a world outside of academia (or so I believe). He made the intentional choice to become a public enemy of his fellow negotiators in class, and now has the gall to ask them to vote him in? Why even try winning a popularity contest through such desperate means if it wasn't important enough for him to care about in the first place? What entitles such a man to feeling like he has to win everything at all times?
On the day of the last class, there was chatter at the back of the class asking if people received "the text" that he'd sent out and whether they'd acted on the request. I was mildly offended to be excluded from this lobbying campaign. After all, I had faced him in opposition during my FINRA arbitration, which I won. (This fact is irrelevant to the narrative, but I cannot resist perverse joy.) Regardless, I qualified for a groveling text asking for my vote and I joked about it, until people actually started showing me the texts. I winced from the secondhand shame.
Isn't the whole point of competitive advantage that if you're good enough at it, your skills should be sufficient to carry you through the finish line? And if winning a popularity contest is so important, then why not prioritize that into your demeanor from the first day of class?
A lot of dirty laundry about this man was aired that day, including some theories as to why winning such a trivial trophy would be so important to him. Some attributed it as a compensation for his romantic failures that semester. Allegedly, he had relentlessly pursued one of my classmates and refused to take her rejections at face-value. He (allegedly) escalated the matter by challenging her boyfriend as to whether he was "done playing around." Some attributed it to a sense of entitlement that commonly afflicts accomplished Caucasian men. Some speculated that maybe the texts were a joke, one in which he intended to mock the voting process. Some dismissed it under the general umbrella of emotional immaturity that grants generous coverage to men.
Our professor announced the top five nominations. I had not had the pleasure of working with two of the nominees, and had directly voted the third one in. To my (mild) confusion, I had apparently been voted into the ranks. This should surprise you reader, given my general demeanor on this blog, and yet somehow I didn't make people feel as bad as this guy, who also made it to this nomination pool.
So he continued, gloating and smiling, until the professor started to announce the top 3. He was third, I was second, and the woman I had voted for (rightfully) won first. He went from gracious beacon of joy to ominous thundercloud in a few seconds. He was recorded on camera by the woman who he had been pursuing all semester, which perhaps added a layer of humiliation. Imagine sending out Nancy Pelosi-esque texts only to come in third.
The first and second place winners were required to collect the pizzas that would feed the rest of the class. As we waited outside, she said she had almost considered voting him in out of pity. "If something like this is so important that he's texting people about it, he must want it very badly, and look we all have difficult semesters," she reasoned to me. People nominating me to some class prize because they pitied me felt an even deeper erosion of self-esteem than having to ask people to vote in the first place.
After all, the woman who was awarded first place was also a strong negotiator. She had also been aggressive in the cases I had faced with her. She did not strike me as a pushover, and yet people enjoyed working with her. She was a warm person who left a charming impression on most people, even when she closed deals that should have left her adversaries upset.
When I ask the people who voted me in, they said that they appreciated that I primarily addressed each negotiation as a collaborative problem-solving effort. Sure, I wasn't the sharpest deal-maker on the block (a point brought up by a classmate who had voted for me), but I could de-escalate and ensure that consensus was reached. I don't think my strategy is impossible.
This story has a moral arc that ends well enough: a person who overreaches is rightfully denied and I get to sit here being morally righteous about it all. But I don't believe this man is an exception. Business school seems to attract many people who are so disconnected with the real world, that in some ways, I worry whether they understand the value of the education that they're receiving from Wharton. Obviously, everyone measures "value" differently, but if being unable to actually speak to, connect with or respect human beings is the one skill you don't learn in a networking-focused environment, then what is this all for?