My TEDx Talk: Addicted to Greatness

Posted on March 28, 2012 by Roan Yong

I was honored to speak at TEDx Suzhou on 25 March 2012, at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University. My talk is titled Addicted to Greatness: How Gamification Unleash Total Engagement. This talk is an extension of my earlier talk at Barcamp Shanghai on 3 March 2012.

I change the main title because I wanted to focus more on the gamification part, instead of the engagement part. Here is the video of my TEDx talk and the presentation slides. (If you are in China, please click here to view the video of my TEDx talk).

Addicted to Greatness

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You can find the minutes of my talk below.

The Coming War of Engagement

Studies have shown that since 1987, the job satisfaction rate has been steadily decreasing. Among the younger workers (aged 25 and younger), the job satisfaction rate is only about 40%. So more people are disengaged at the workplace.

Disengagement can hurt organisational performance in 3 ways: (1) Higher absenteeism; (2) Lower productivity; (3) Lower creativity. This can lead to massive loss in productivity. It was estimated that nations like Singapore, Germany, and United States lose billions of dollars in lost productivity.

Far and away the best prize life has to offer is, the chance to work hard at work worth doing. Theodore Roosevelt

More importantly, we need to engage because engagement cultivates talent. When people are engaged in their work, they have the energy to put in 10,000 hours of deliberate effort that can transform them to be talented people. However, once people become talented people, they can be disengaged. So engaging people must take priority over bringing talented people in.

This means the war for talent is over. To be successful, organisations have to win the war of engagement. Organisations have to figure out ways to maximise the motivation and creativity level of their people, so that they can have Steve Jobs and Jeremy Lins among their rank.

To win the war of engagement, organisations have to do one thing right: making work meaningful. Organisations have to blur the line between work and play.

Gamification and How It Can Be Used to Unleash Total Engagement

According to Malcolm Gladwell, there are three ways to make work meaningful: (1) Autonomy; (2) Complexity; (3) A link between effort and reward. The third way, a clear link between effort and reward, also means making progress visible – something that Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer Advocates in their book: The Progress Principle.

Autonomy, Complexity, A link between effort and reward, and Progress visibility are the elements of fun and the keys to total engagement.

One way to bring out all the elements of fun, is through gamification. Gamification is the use of game design techniques and game mechanics to solve problems and to engage people.

When we play games, we are totally engaged to the point of obsession. Games are so addictive because the game designers embed game mechanics in the game.

The game mechanics are none other than the elements of fun that we talked about earlier. In games, we have: (1) Autonomy, i.e. we can defeat the enemy in any way; (2) Complexity, i.e. we develop skills just-in-time to defeat the enemy; (3) A clear link between effort and reward, i.e. we get points, artifact, and other virtual goods once we defeat the enemy; and (4) sense of progress, i.e. we know how far we are in the game.

Underlying these game mechanics is the build up of confidence / self-belief. Games build confidence. In games, there is always someone / something who guides us and believes that we can fulfill our destiny – despite the adversity that we face.

Gamification isn’t a fantasy. It is enabled by web 2.0, cloud technology, and mobile platforms (e.g. iPad, iPhone). With these things, for the first time in history, we are able to collect and analyse big data – which is the lifeblood of gamification.

And our world is increasingly gamified. More organisations like Amazon.com, Linkedin, Salesforce.com, Nike plus, are gamifying their business so that they can engage their people and their customers.

Allow me to use Salesforce as an epitome of gamification. In Salesforce, you can find:

Goals – a function that triggers two elements of fun: autonomy and complexity.
Points and achievements – function that trigger another element of fun: a clear link between effort and reward
Progress bar – a function that gives sense of progress.

To make gamification work, all elements of fun have to be used. Tencent weibo (qq weibo) is the poster boy for gamification gone wrong. Despite its fantastic point system, i.e. badges, levels, and points – qq weibo fails to inject meaning into their point system because they don’t have goals. A fact that is made worse by the ranking model (it is based on the number of followers – not on points).

Nike Plus is one of the best examples on injecting meaning into the point system. Nike plus did so well because they understand what the community of runners needs. Nike plus know what the people want, i.e. setting personal goals, improving your performance, training smarter, etc.

Point system isn’t the essence of gamification. The build up of confidence is.

Gamification can unleash engagement because it offers an array of tools like goals, points, badges, achievements – to build confidence so that people can focus and achieve their personal goals.

Smart organisations use gamification to engage their people and to maximise the motivation and creativity level of their people. With an engaged workforce, organisations can increase innovation and improve productivity by leaps and bounds.

How Gamification Leads to Maximum Performance

Posted on March 23, 2012 by Roan Yong

He kept saying great things. You will have a great fight. You will do splendid. You look great. You are looking better. He kept giving me compliments and compliments about everything that I did. - Mike Tyson talking about Cus D’Amato -

Listen, you can change your life. Your family life. You can become something that is very special. - Cus D’Amato -

I love watching the above video clip. D’Amato builds Mike Tyson’s confidence and he turns him into a great boxing champion.

In basketball, I see a similar thing happening. D’Anthoni trusts Jeremy Lin’s ability, gives him confidence and opportunity to shine. And Lin took the opportunity and rise to NBA stardom.

No doubt, D’Amato and D’Anthoni are world class trainers in sports. But I think building confidence is the first thing that great mentors, in any field, should do. Too bad organisations have to many bosses and to few mentors.

In the business world, people talk about Key Performance Index (KPI) and disregard confidence. And that’s a real pity, because confidence is a premium factor of performance in any kinds of work. To meet or exceed business KPIs, you must first have confidence to do so.

Whose Job Is It to Build Confidence?

Now, you may ask, whose job is it to build confidence? The answer would depend on who you ask. Bosses would say that they expect their staff to be self-motivated (read: solve your own confidence issue). On the flip side, staff usually expect their boss would help to build their confidence (read: please help me to be confident).

On either side, the expectation is inflated and unrealistic.

Over the course of their work, rank-and-file staff often face hurdles or disagreement with their boss that knocks their confidence down. Although, the good people can motivate themselves and try again, too many knocks on confidence could lead them to give up. People, no matter how tough they are, can be demoralised. And they need help to regain their confidence.

Expecting the bosses to continuously build their staff confidence is also unrealistic. Pressure to produce results often means the bosses can’t afford to make mistake. Once the fear to make mistake sets in, the bosses don’t have the time and energy to build confidence in their team. Bosses, afterall, are just human.

So what now? The job of building confidence is practically in no-man’s land.

Gamify Work to Build Confidence

Perhaps a third party intervention is needed. Gamification of work is requried. This doesn’t mean that we all should play games at work. But rather gamification is about applying the principles of gaming into the business world.

The interesting fact about game is that it builds confidence. If you play game, you would notice that gamers start at level 1 - a level in which you don’t know how to do anything. But as you progress in the game, you gain more confidence on your ability and on using the right skills to achieve the goals.

Game mechanics is the secret mechanisms that builds confidence. In games, you earned points, badges, level ups, artifacts, and other virtual good. All these virtual stuff are in fact some sort of compliments that you get for everything that you did right. If you did something wrong in the game, you would die. But, you learn something when you die, you are making progress, and you have an opportunity to try again.

When work gets gamified, all of us can inculcate self-belief and have the privilege of receiving many compliments – just like Mike Tyson had. All of us can become champion in our line of work!

Comments?

Note: This is a prelude to my TEDx Talk: Addicted to Greatness: How Gamification Unleash Total Engagement. Stay tuned if you want to find out more about how gamification builds confidence.

In the meantime, you may want to watch another video clip of Mike Tyson. Pay special attention to 2:40 onwards and between 3:06 and 3:41 - that’s how D’Amato implants self-belief in Tyson’s mind.

The Pursuit of Happiness: How Gamification Unleash Total Engagement

Posted on March 17, 2012 by Roan Yong

I was in barcamp Shanghai on 3rd March 2012, to give a talk, titled the Pursuit of Happiness: How Gamification Unleash Total Engagement.

In this talk, I shared how engagement has become the new competitive advantage. Alas, many organisations are clueless about engaging their people. This is about to change, however, thanks to a new emerging field called gamification. Successful organisations are those who know how to gamify the workplace to engage their people.

Here is the video clip of my talk.

And here is the presentation slides

The Pursuit of Happiness

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If you like this talk, then stay tuned. I will come up with a more exciting version of this talk for my TEDx talk this month.

Q&A on The Game of Collaboration Talk, in GovCamp Singapore 2011

Posted on December 13, 2011 by Roan Yong

I was pleasantly surprised by the onslaught of questions at the end of my GovCamp Singapore talk: The Game of Collaboration, at the Rock Auditorium, Suntec City, Singapore. Honestly, I didn’t expect anyone would bother to ask any question.

Unfortunately, because of the limited time, I couldn’t address all the questions and my answers at that time may not satisfy those who asked the questions. I felt guilty about this.

So in this blog post, I would like to thank those who asked questions and would like to provide quality answers to the questions. Furthermore, I hope to continue the conversation about collaboration and gamification beyond GovCamp Singapore.

1. Q: What is the leader’s role in collaboration?

A: The leaders have three main roles: (1) to set direction to the collaboration; (2) to manage the conflicts within the collaboration community; (3) to design incentives – so that self-interests are aligned to the collective interest (the goal of collaboration).

2. Disagreement: Someone disagreed with me about kicking-out incompetent people from collaboration. He added that the result of collaboration can be about learning.

Comment: The bulk of collaboration community is lurkers – who give minimum contribution to the collaboration. These lurkers can certainly learn from the active members and tribal leaders if they want to. And the lurkers can become active members or tribal leaders once they acquire the necessary skills or experience (this “upward social mobility” is called Legitimate Peripheral Participation).

What I mean by “excluding incompetent people” is to exclude them in key decision making in the collaboration, in setting the direction of the collaboration, and in rewards-and-recognition. But we shouldn’t stop them from learning.

And I’m not saying that the incompetent people should be despised and looked down upon. In fact, I truly believe that everyone has a talent. Therefore, people should collaborate according to their talent. Forcing people to stay in the collaboration team where they can’t make valuable contribution, is equivalent to creating lose-lose situation for everybody.

3. Q: Does the leaders in collaboration need to be visible to outsiders?

A: Yes the collaboration leaders need to be visible – within and outside the collaboration community. Visibility means earning well-deserved reputation for those who become the collaboration leaders. The leaders become collaboration leaders because they want to known as the champion of a cause, i.e. they do it to increase their personal credibility/brand.

So visibility is important because it boosts the leaders’ personal brand and rewards people intrinsically for being the leaders. When you are a passionate advocate / thought leader on a certain topic, being visible is inevitable. People will see you as the collaboration leader even though you don’t have a formal recognition as “leader”.

4. Q: Why bring gamification to leaderless movements such as Slutwalk, Occupy Wall Street?

A: Gamification helps more people to see who the collaboration leaders are, and helps to shorten the process of peer-recognition.

So, in leaderless movements such as Slutwalk or Occupy Wall Street, gamification be used to identify the leaders of the leaderless movement.

The leaders are not necessarily the organisers of the leaderless movement. More leaders could emerge from the community. And it is not always easy to identify who the collaboration leaders are – unless you are deeply involved in the community.

But, using gamification, anyone can easily find out who the collaboration leaders are – at anytime.

5. Q: What kind of incentives in gamification? intrinsic or extrinsic?

A: Gamification incentives should be tied to intrinsic motivation. The incentives have to be meaningful to the right people. i.e. passionate people with the right skills and attitude.

Badges, points, or level-ups are not extrinsic reward. Those are intrinsic reward because they are tied to the person’s reputation / personal branding.

It is wrong to use badges, points, or level-ups in collaboration without any purpose. You won’t attract the right people, and people will soon get bored with the point system.

Instead, use badges, points, or level-ups to motivate people to attain mastery in certain skills / personal development.

6. Q: Why you need gamification in a company? Is gamification the same as the traditional reward-and-recognition in organisation?

A: No, gamification isn’t the same as the traditional reward-and-recognition. Gamification incentives are tied to the intrinsic motivation as I have explained above.

You need gamification in a company to make work meaningful by giving task autonomy, making progress visible, and recognising people who have achieved personal mastery. The traditional reward-and-recognition isn’t enough to make work meaningful. Gamification can fill the gap.

7. Q: How effective gamification in sales team if they aren’t rewarded by something tangible?

A: Gamification can be effective in many team settings – including sales team. To be effective, as I have explained earlier on, the gamification incentives (badges, points, or level-ups) should be tied to intrinsic motivation, i.e. attaining personal mastery or boosting personal branding.

Do you have further questions on collaboration or gamification? Post your questions / thoughts in the comment box below. I’ll be happy to offer my view.

Why Collaboration Fails And How Gamification Can Help

Posted on November 20, 2011 by Roan Yong

I had the pleasure to speak at GovCamp Singapore, on 18 November 2011, at the Rock Auditorium, at Suntec City Mall. The title of my talk was The Game of Collaboration: Why Collaboration Fails and How Gamification Can Help. Here are the video of my talk and the slides.

The Game of Collaboration from Roan Yong on Vimeo.

The Game of Collaboration

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And here is the minutes of my talk (I change some of the words and cut some points for easy reading).

Collaboration is the most spoken word in private and public sector. But it is also the most misunderstood word. A lot of people take collaboration for granted. They assume that collaboration works like magic. And that open data, shared purpose, and similar ideas work like magical ingredients for collaboration.

In my talk, I intend to share my thoughts on why collaboration fails and what we can do to make collaboration works. I propose gamification as potential solution to the issues of collaboration. But first, let’s see how “self-interest” drives collaboration.

Why People Collaborate

The reason for collaboration seems simple enough. We need 10,000 hours (8 – 10 years) to master one topic. And we innovate by merging our ideas with other ideas. So we need to collaborate, in order to improve our productivity and to innovate.

Therein lies our self-interest in collaboration. We collaborate because we want to achieve something great that we can’t achieve though individual effort, i.e. greater productivity and innovation.

Why Collaboration Fails

Collaboration fails because of three main reasons:

1. Distorted sense of Altruism and Socialism

When working in team, we are often told that we need to sacrifice ourselves for the benefit of others and that everyone should receive equal reward regardless of contributions.

Well, the truth is we can’t turn everyone into mother Teresa. People who are motivated by altruism alone, are extremely rare. And believe it or not, most people will kick-out liabilities from the team – just like what we have seen in the European Union (EU). The EU bickers on saving Greece – their own European brother. I believe Greece will be kicked out of the EU soon.

So collaboration is never about altruism / socialism. It is not about helping the weak, or the incompetent. It is about achieving something great that people can’t achieve through individual effort.

2. A false belief that shared purpose can overcome self-interest

Shared purpose is a good starting point for collaboration, but it is not enough to make collaboration happens.

As we have seen in the failure of world leaders to collaborate on tackling climate change, the hardest part in collaboration is managing self-interest / conflicts and getting people to agree on a set of collective actions to collaborate. Self-interest will not magically “disappear” – just because people have shared purpose.

3. A false belief that collaboration needs to be leaderless

We are fascinated by being leaderless. We believe that being leaderless is all good and is superior to having leaders. But as we can see from two “leaderless” movements, namely Occupy Wall Street and Slutwalk, being leaderless has two issues: you send mixed message and you can’t think strategically to solve the problem.

Not everyone is born equal in collaboration. In collaboration community, we can find “tribal leaders” – people who are very passionate in and committed to the collaboration. They form about 1% of the community. We can also find “active members” – people who actively contribute to the collaboration. They form about 9% of the community. Last but not least, we can find “the lurkers” – people who give minor contribution to the collaboration. They are the majority and form about 90% of the community.

To transform collective action into collaboration, we need to connect the tribal leaders – the 1%. We need to get them to think and set direction to the collaborative effort.

How Gamification Can Help

Gamification is the use of game-design techniques and game mechanics to solve problem and engage audiences. Applied correctly, gamification can bring the fun, engaging, and additive elements of gaming, to non-game environment, i.e. the business world.

What makes gaming so addictive? Gaming is addictive because it injects capitalism. That means, you have the autonomy to master the skills that you want, and you have the rights to earn incentives that you deserve. In addition, gaming is addictive because progress towards goal and character development, is visible. Progress visibility motivates us.

Gamified collaboration appeals to self-interest, so that people with the right motivation would participate in the collaboration. And incentives would motivate tribal leaders to connect, and would reward contributions so that no one left out (the ones who are being left out, are people who don’t give any contribution, i.e. the incompetent).

To gamify collaboration, we need to make collaborative task visible so that people can have the freedom to choose the task that suits their ability, time, or interest. We need to make collaborators’ strengths and weaknesses visible so that people can form collaboration team with complimentary skill set. And we need to give fair incentives based on contributions.

Gamifying collaboration makes sense because playing games is about collaboration. In games:

quests’ characteristics are visible. This enables us to gauge whether we are ready to take on a certain quest.
each character’s strengths and weaknesses are shown. This enables us to form collaboration team with complimentary skill set.
each action is recorded and rewarded. This enables us to build reputation and allows leaders to emerge from the collaboration community. This also ensures each action, big or small, is rewarded accordingly.

Web 2.0 will make collaboration gamification a reality. To create lively discussions among their community members and to build collaboration community, TED has incorporated some gaming elements in their discussion forum (TED Conversations), namely task autonomy, social validation tools, reputation system, and expertise search.

TED is not alone in the effort to gamify collaboration. I give you another example: Salesforce. Salesforce makes personal development visible, so that people are motivated to collaborate, and to achieve goals in workplace setting.

The future belongs to organisations who gamify collaboration.

How do you find my talk above? What do you think of using gamification to make collaboration works? Share your thoughts in the comment box below.

If you like my talk above and would like to book me to speak at your event / conference, then email me at roan_yong [at] yahoo [dot] com. (I give free talk for non-profit organisations and for public agencies.)

If you would like to find out more about how to gamify collaboration and how to design incentives for gamification, then read my free e-book: bit.ly/sociacol, or skype me at roan.yong, or email me at roan_yong [at] yahoo [dot] com. (I’m always open to meet people for lunch / dinner).

Here is a list of recommended readings that you may find useful:

Amabile, T, and Kramer, S. (2011). The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work. Harvard Business School Press.

Pink, D. (2011). Drive: The Suprising Truth About What Motivates Us. Riverhead Trade.

Hansen, M. (2009). Collaboration: How Leaders Avoid the Traps, Create Unity, and Reap Big Results. Harvard Business School Press.

McGonigal, J. (2011). Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World. Penguin Press HC.

P/S: I also captured my talk in MP3 format Podcast_TheGameofCollaboration. You can download it to your iPod, iPad, or iPhone. Feel free to distribute the materials in this blog post (please acknowledge roanyong)

KM Incentives: Lessons from The Gaming Industry

Posted on November 13, 2010 by Roan Yong

Many people think that gaming is a waste of time. It is a mindless activity they say. I certainly thought so too, despite being an avid gamer when I was younger. But the above TED talk changed my perspective.

Gaming is very engaging, or some may say very addictive. Indeed, video game addiction is considered as a scourge in China. So much so that the Chinese government decided to get involved in curbing this ‘addiction’. The government opened game-addiction clinic in 2005 in order to ‘cure’ extreme gamers. Recently, South Korea, the most wired country in the world, decided to follow China’s footsteps. The South Korean government imposed ‘curfew for gamers’. It ordered game operators to ban people under age 18 from playing game between midnight to 8am.

But this doesn’t mean gaming is at the same level as cocaine, cigarettes, or other addictive drugs / banned substances. You see, in gaming, people engross themselves with missions. Whatever the missions are – i.e. saving the world, collecting cool weapons, defeating powerful foes – gamers found sense of purpose in gaming. And this sense of purpose is the one that lit their intrinsic motivation, so that they can spend hundreds of hours playing game.

What does gaming have to do with Knowledge Management (KM)? KM is a serious management discipline, while gaming is a child’s play. But is it true? I would argue that KMers can learn a thing or two from the gaming industry, especially on designing incentives that stoke intrinsic motivation. Imagine the possibilities, if we (KMers) could just design incentives for doing KM activities, such as After Action Review (AAR), Pre-mortems, Retrospect, and other knowledge capture techniques (basically the stuffs that busy executives choose to ignore). The benefits for the organisation, as well as for the individuals, will be immense. So how can we design such incentives?

Before I answer the above question, let’s try to understand why gaming is such an engaging activity. According to Tom Chatfield, there are 7 ways games reward the brain:

Experience Bars Measure Progress. When progress is visible, people would have more self-efficacy – which according to research, is the building block of top performance.
Multiple long and short term goals. This would keep people engaged in activities.
Rewards for efforts. In order to have sense of purpose, people need to see how their efforts contribute to results.
Rapid and frequent feedbacks. This is about creating safe-fail environment, where people can quickly learn from their mistakes and try something new. In Design thinking, this is called rapid prototyping.
An element of uncertainty. People are excited about uncertain rewards. Uncertainty makes them curious.
Windows of enhanced attention (or Flow).
Other people! This is about collaborating with other people. When there is a huge challenge that you can’t solve by going solo, you would want to find capable people / people whom you can trust, in order to overcome the huge challenge.

Thus, drawing from the above pointers, below are six cues on how KMers ought to design KM activities – in which people are intrinsically motivated to do:

Establish Points System. If someone in the organisation captured her knowledge, give her some points. This gives her some sorts of reward for capturing knowledge.
Establish Hall of Fame, and ensure that it is visible throughout the organisation. Hall of Fame would allow people to compare themselves against others – which would build up healthy competitive spirit. For example, the high scorers would be given ‘lofty titles’ – such as KM champions, evangelists, guardians. And the top ten in the list would be featured in the organisation newsletter.
Show the Impact of KM activities. Establishing Hall of Fame is not enough, people may not see the value of outscoring each other. Unless, they are able to see the impact of KM activities to the organisation, or to themselves. Consider illustrating the benefits of KM activities in terms of time saved, productivity gained, increased innovation. Better still, translate knowledge capture in terms of personal development. In gaming, this is called ‘leveling up’.
Make Types of Rewards Uncertain. An element of uncertainty is what makes people keep on going. The key here is to keep people guessing on what kind of rewards they would get. So, consider giving random rewards. It is important to avoid giving financial rewards such as salary increment, or bonus payment. Instead, tell people that they can expect either one of these: (1) Appreciation Lunch with Senior Management; (2) Time-off; (3) Employee of the Year award; (4) More training opportunities; (5) Additional points during performance review.
Give Rapid and Frequent Feedback. In gaming, when you are inexperienced, your character would die often. These instances of getting killed are part of the rapid and frequent feedback mechanism. This kind of feedback system, spur people to learn. In the same way, people who are inexperienced in KM activities, should be given rapid and frequent feedback. For example, they should be informed of how many people downloaded (or using a Facebook term – liked) the knowledge capture documents.
Give Autonomy. In gaming, gamers could accomplish missions in various ways. That’s why gaming is so engaging! In the KM world, people should have the freedom to capture knowledge using methods that they prefer. Rigidity kills intrinsic motivation.

To sum-up, gaming is indeed a serious business! KM can take cues from the gaming industry, especially on setting-up incentives. If you would like to find out more about the importance of gaming / playing to human development, please check out the following materials:

http://www.urgentevoke.com/ – An online game where gamers are faced with real world-problems

http://www.stanford.edu/class/engr280/ – A Stanford University course on gaming. It is titled, ‘From Gaming To Innovation’

http://innovationgames.com/

Singapore Population’s Dilemma: A Game Theoretic view

Posted on March 22, 2009 by Roan Yong

MM Lee reflected on Singapore population challenge, which is how to coax Singaporeans to have more kids, during NUSS dialogue 20 March 2009. I would like to offer a possible explanation, based on Game Theory, to Singapore population’s dilemma. Please refer to below diagram:

Game Theory on Singapore Population

The numbers indicate the descending order of desirability (1 is most desirable).

I use the following assumptions:

Singapore government spend more to draft new policy to induce Singaporeans to get married and have at least 2 kids, while the government will spend less if they bring in foreigners and offer citizenship to quality foreigners.
Singaporeans need to sacrifice more resources (time, money, and effort), i.e. spend more, to have family with at least 2 kids, while they can have more freedom, i.e. spend less, if they stay single or just have 1 child. (Note: stay single in the above table include couple with 1 child).

Singapore government most desirable outcome is when they bring in foreigners for Singapore economic stability and Singaporeans have at least 2 kids. The least desirable would be when the government come up with new incentives to stimulate population growth, but Singaporeans stay single. Between the remaining two options, Singapore government prefers to spend more to ensure Singaporeans as the majority of the population (and therefore avoid situation that MM lee described: Singaporeans would become the last of Mohicans), than the other option which could reduce the ratio of Singaporeans to foreigners.

On the other hand, Singaporeans prefer to stay single and the government to offer them more incentives to get married because Singaporeans will have more flexibility and choices available (after all we are ‘kiasu’ singaporeans). So this is the most desirable from Singaporeans perspective. The least desirable option is when the government bring in foreigners and they have family with at least 2 kids, Singaporeans will feel insecure about their jobs and concern about the increased competition with foreigners. Between the remaining two options, Singaporeans prefer to bite government incentives and raise family with at least 2 kids, rather than stay single and compete with foreigners.

The game theoretic table above tells us that the dominant strategy for Singapore government is to spend less (and therefore bring in more foreigners), while the dominant strategy for Singaporeans is also to spend less (stay single). When we combine the two dominant strategy (in game theory, the intersection between the two dominant strategy will be the equilibrium of the game), we have Singapore government bring in more foreigners and Singaporeans stay single (3, 3). This explains the Singapore population’s dilemma: the government have no choice but to bring in more foreigners to boost up population, while Singaporeans embrace single-hood as a new lifestyle.

In Game Theory, this situation is called the prisoner’s dilemma, i.e. the combined dominant strategies lead to an outcome that is far from ideal. Only if Singapore government and Singaporeans each chooses non-dominant strategy, then both parties will be able to reach optimum (2,2).