Organizational Development: A Manual for Managers and ... - FPDL

have the same objectives, but the ways in which they approach their objectives may somehow be
correlated, to their reciprocal mutual gain. In this way, a potentially hazardous antagonistic
situation becomes a win-win situation.
Full alignment of somehow different interests and related objectives is also possible in numeric
cases. Someone wants to buy what somebody else wants to sell. Someone needs company to
enjoy a glass of beer and a friendly chat, and somebody else needs the same. Someone wants to
kiss somebody, and this somebody does not mind at all. This kind of interrelation games we call
love games.
Thus, we distinguish four basic categories of games: ‘games with the nature’, where another player
is indifferent and beyond control; ‘antagonistic games’, where each player is enemy to another one
and tends to use his power to force another to do what is more preferable for him; ‘business
games’, where each player is forced to change their ‘free-will’ behaviour to a way he would not
have otherwise chosen; and ‘love games’, where each participant is doing what he wants to do
anyway, and it suits to everybody. Of course, in real life these types of games may mix in various
and even curious proportions. These relations are illustrated in Picture 10.
Unpredictability
“of partner’s”
behavior
Games with
nature
Antagonistic
games
Love
games
Full
predictability
of partner’s
behavior
Business
games
Opposing
interests
Coinciding
interests
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