KINGDOM TYCOONS: ENCOURAGING SOCIAL JUSTICE

I teach Ethics at a graduate leadership program. One of my challenges is to help our leaders understand the impact of lack of fairness. Specifically:

• Do we notice when there are power and resource imbalances?
• How do we react to issues of lack of fairness?
• What type of society would we create if we knew we could land "anywhere" in the social spectrum? 

Of course, these discussions are hardly new. One of my favorite philosophers, John Rawls, argues that a fair society results from a "Veil of Ignorance." This "Veil" forces future society members to make blind decisions, without knowing whether they will be rich or poor, intelligent or unintelligent, members of a top or a lower class. They do not even know their personality traits or abilities. Under those "ignorance" conditions:

• What types of inequalities are reasonable?
• How are resources allocated?

​To help leaders experience inequality, I use a game called "The Kingdom Tycoons." I assign participants to three groups (upper, middle and lower class), provide different resources to each group and then observe the resulting group dynamics.  Here is how you can reproduce the game:

1. First, come up with a way to assign participants to each of the three groups: upper class (I call this group "The Dukes,"  middle class ("The Knights") and lower class ("The Peasants").
2. How do you differentiate? Any game of chance will do.  For instance, you may use a modified (or seriously rigged) game of poker. Each player receives a sealed envelope containing an "initial hand" (five cards) and a varying number of chips. Make sure some players receive better cards and more chips than others. For example, some envelopes may include only Aces or even a Royal Flush.
3. After you differentiate the three groups, send participants to different parts of the room and give them different sets of resources. In my version, we celebrate the accomplishments of the Dukes and shower them with "stuff" (including boxes of donuts and decorations for their table).  The "Peasants"  have basically nothing - the "Knights" are somewhere in between.
4. Next, give participants something to do. Once again, the task is irrelevant and depends on your training theme. In my version, participants are asked to build a prototype of a new kingdom using Lego pieces (and yes, the Dukes by then have far more pieces than the Knights; the Peasants have none whatsoever). I explain such differentiation by the "higher skill" of the poker winners. 
5. Somewhere halfway through the process, give the three groups the opportunity to rewrite the game rules (in my version I tell them to rewrite the "Constitution"). 
6. That's where it gets REALLY interesting. Typically, the Peasants claim for total equality, the Knights ask for a complicated change of rules involving more "mentoring" of the Peasants and more social mobility, and the Dukes want... nothing (duh). 
7. A fair amount of "charity"  often takes place, with Knights pressuring the Dukes to contribute more resources. The game is truly fascinating. In approximately 1 hour I am able to invite rich discussions on opportunity, merit, the role of "luck,"  and... what leaders can and should do about it.

An important disclaimer: This is not a terribly original idea - simulations like the one that I ran "pop up"  under different names and with different scenarios and rules.  As a colleague in the Linked:HR group rightfully pointed out, one could say that I " somewhat" reproduced the scenario pioneered by teacher Jane Elliott in Iowa thirty years ago (for those unfamiliar with Ms. Elliott's work, go to http://www.janeelliott.com/index.htm).

Good luck! If you come up with a different version, how about sharing what you did? Also, let me know what happened!