Accessible text version. Each heading below is one slide, in order. Instructor: Ryan Lamare.
LER 565, Week 2 live session: Sequential and Zero-Sum Strategies and Their Applications to HR. Instructor: Ryan Lamare.
One: a quick look at this week's materials. Two: sequential and zero-sum strategies, recapped. Three: one hire, three games — selection, the offer, then on the job. Four: Azee match number one, and reflection number one is due.
Lecture: Sequential and Zero-Sum Strategies. Clips: Littlefinger and Sansa; Barbados versus Grenada; the Mexican standoff. Readings: Games Solvable by Backward Reasoning, and Zero-Sum Games. Podcast: To Set a Great Strategy, Start by Imagining the Future.
Two modes: sequential, where you move then respond, and simultaneous. In sequential games you think forward and reason back with game trees. First-mover advantage is real, but fast followers can leapfrog. Zero-sum games are a fixed pie, so find your dominant strategy.
We follow a single hire through three decisions today. Selection: which candidate makes the cut, the hiring game. The offer: what salary seals the deal, one-shot bargaining. On the job: do you keep investing in each other, the long game.
Two teams of senior HR managers are hiring. Budget allows at most three new hires. Both teams want maximum say over who gets hired.
Twenty equally strong applicants, shown as twenty resumes. Teams take turns removing one to three unsuitable resumes. I alternate between the two teams each round. The team left with the final say wins.
Think forward, reason backward. To win, leave the other team four or more resumes on its last turn. So leave eight the round before, and twelve before that. Team 2 wins by leaving sixteen after round one, whatever Team 1 does.
You've selected your candidate; now agree on pay. One-shot: hiring creates one hundred thousand dollars of value to split; talk first. The firm names a final salary, the candidate's share, and keeps the rest. The candidate accepts or rejects; reject means no hire and zero each. Log it.
Each unused paid-time-off day is worth one hundred dollars, so the banked pot grows by one hundred dollars a day, from one hundred dollars on day one to one thousand dollars on day ten. Turns alternate between the employee and HR. On your turn you can cash out the whole pot now, in which case the other side gets nothing, or pass and let it grow for the other side to decide. Rollback logic says grab early, which unravels all the way to cashing out on day one for just one hundred dollars. But if both keep passing to day ten, the thousand-dollar pot splits fairly, five hundred each, far better for everyone — unless the last mover grabs it all.
The ultimatum game: rollback says offer a token amount and it's accepted. But people reject lowball offers they read as unfair. So smart proposers offer far more than the minimum. HR lesson: a lowball, supposedly rational offer can cost you the hire.
Rollback says someone takes at the end, so take first. The logic unravels all the way to grabbing on turn one. Yet you kept passing — trust builds real value. HR lesson: short-term grabs wreck relationships worth keeping.
Reflection number one, on sequential strategies, is due Sunday, July 12. Azee is at heart a sequential game: you move, then your opponent. Where do you reason backward to find your best line? And what does the one token do, first-mover advantage at a cost.
Next week: non-zero-sum games, the prisoner's dilemma, when cooperation pays but defection always tempts. We'll play Titan Wars. Due Sunday, July 19: the Week 3 quiz and Podcast Analysis number one.
Backup game, only if we have time. You and a rival each get ten budget points for three roles. Secretly split your ten; the higher bid wins each role. Win two of three, and no single split always wins.