Types of Training Activities: 2. Cash Transactions

Cash Transactions feature transactions with real cash to bring out behaviors and emotions that reflect the real-world workplace. These transactions typically explore interpersonal skills (such as negotiation and bargaining) and concepts (such as competition and collaboration).

Sample Cash Transactions

$5 Meetings

The purpose of this cash transaction is to provide practice in negotiating with other individuals: The participants conduct up to eight different one-on-one meetings, each requiring coming up with an agreement. Successful meetings generate virtual money outcomes. At the end of the activity, the participant with the total outcome receives a real money payment.

Black or Red

The purpose of this cash transaction is to explore collaboration and competition: Pairs of players independently hold up a red or black playing cards. If both players hold black, they earn 1 point each. If one player holds a black and the other holds a red, the player who holds the black earns 5 points and the player who holds the red earns zero points. If both players hold red, they both earn zero points. After 10 rounds of play, the person with the higher cumulative score wins the transaction. During the debriefing discussion, the players figure out that cooperative play would have earned greater scores to both.

Me and My Team

The purpose of this cash transaction is to provide the players to experience the potential conflict between self-interest and the common interest of a team: Divide the participants into teams of 5 members each. Ask each member of each team to give you a piece of paper with a message specifying how they would divide 100 points between themselves and their team. Explain that the winner is the player with the highest personal score who is also a member of the team with the highest team score. This rule creates a conflict between individual needs and their team needs.

Negotiate

The purpose of this cash transaction is to explore factors related to negotiation and coalition formation: The facilitator deals a set of five playing cards (2, 3, 4, 5, and 6) to each member of the group. These cards represent the initial assets of the players. The players have 3 minutes form coalitions with a minimum total initial asset of 9 to win a profit of $10,000. After playing three rounds, the players determine the winner with the highest accumulated share of the profits.

Persuasion

The purpose of this cash transaction is to practice persuading one another: The facilitator announces a donation of $50 to be spent any way most of the players agree. Each player secretly comes up with an attractive suggestion for spending the $50. The players organize themselves into teams and sell their idea to each other. After selecting one of the ideas, a spokesperson from each team appeals to the members of the other teams. A poll is conducted to select the best idea and the $50 is spent on implementing this idea.

Prize Money

The purpose of this cash transaction is to demonstrate that financial sacrifices do not always produce desirable results: Without communicating with each other, the players send the facilitator a confidential message to indicate whether they want $5 or 5 cents. The facilitator announces that they will give whatever money each player asks for—provided at least 7 of them choose to receive 5 cents. In most cases, fewer than 7 players opt for 5 cents, making everyone lose.

Detailed instructions for conducting each of these cash transactions will be provided in my forthcoming book.