Make workplace conflict resolution a game that EVERYBODY wins! Recent studies show that typical managers devote more than a quarter of their time to resolving coworker disputes. The Big Book of Conflict-Resolution Games offers a wealth of activities and exercises for groups of any size that let you manage your business (instead of managing personalities). Part of the acclaimed, bestselling Big Books series, this guide offers step-by-step directions and customizable tools that empower you to heal rifts arising from ineffective communication, cultural/personality clashes, and other specific problem areas—before they affect your organization's bottom line. Let The Big Book of Conflict-Resolution Games help you to: Build trust Foster morale Improve processes Overcome diversity issues And more Dozens of physical and verbal activities help create a safe environment for teams to explore several common forms of conflict—and their resolution. Inexpensive, easy-to-implement, and proved effective at Fortune 500 corporations and mom-and-pop businesses alike, the exercises in The Big Book of Conflict-Resolution Games delivers everything you need to make your workplace more efficient, effective, and engaged.

“An insider’s view of the good things that can emerge from being glued to a screen. . . . A solid piece of pop-culture/business journalism.” —Kirkus Reviews The phenomenal growth of gaming has inspired plenty of hand-wringing since its inception—from the press, politicians, parents, and everyone else concerned with its effect on our brains, bodies, and hearts. But what if games could be good, not only for individuals but for the world? In Power Play, Asi Burak and Laura Parker explore how video games are now pioneering innovative social change around the world. As the former executive director and now chairman of Games for Change, Asi Burak has spent the last ten years supporting and promoting the use of video games for social good, in collaboration with leading organizations like the White House, NASA, World Bank, and The United Nations. The games for change movement has introduced millions of players to meaningful experiences around everything from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the US Constitution. Power Play looks to the future of games as a global movement. Asi Burak and Laura Parker profile the luminaries behind some of the movement’s most iconic games, including former Supreme Court judge Sandra Day O’Connor and Pulitzer Prize–winning authors Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. They also explore the promise of virtual reality to address social and political issues with unprecedented immersion, and see what the next generation of game makers have in store for the future.

This modern, still relevant text is suitable for senior undergraduate and graduate students, teachers and professionals in mathematics, operational research, economics, sociology; and psychology, defence and strategic studies, and war games. Engagingly written with agreeable humor, the book can also be understood by non-mathematicians. It shows basic ideas of extensive form, pure and mixed strategies, the minimax theorem, non-cooperative and co-operative games, and a ''first class'' account of linear programming, theory and practice. The text is self-contained with comprehensive source references. Based on a series of lectures given by the author in the theory of games at Royal Holloway College, it gives unusually comprehensive but concise treatment of co-operative games, an original account of bargaining models, with a skilfully guided tour through the Shapely and Nash solutions for bimatrix games and a carefully illustrated account of finding the best threat strategies.

Star and executive producer of the hit TV show Bar Rescue and New York Times bestselling author of Don't Bullsh*t Yourself, Jon Taffer reveals the transformational power of conflict, sharing his toolkit for arguing smarter—at home, at work, and in life. Most people try their best to avoid conflict. Bar Rescue host Jon Taffer understands that. Conflict can have negative results. It’s easy to think that the key to a happy workplace or marriage is to avoid conflict. In reality, that’s not the case—the key is to argue smarter. Enter the Toolkit for Getting Conflict Right. Taffer’s approach is focused on deliberate conflict—otherwise known as “conflict with a purpose.” There are selective and strategic ways to have difficult conversations, and when doing so, to stay aware of your objectives rather than escalating tension unnecessarily. As Taffer explains, “The key is to act affirmatively, constructively, and productively.” Eliminating conflict isn’t always the answer; inevitably there will be times when it will arise. Engaging in conflict can be a way to clear the air, and get to the bottom of issues that, once resolved, can strengthen friendships, ease tensions at work, and address problems before they have a chance to bubble over. With easy-to-follow advice that shows how to best engage in constructive discourse to get the results you want, The Power of Conflict provides you with the rules to argue smarter, uphold your values, and keep the conversation real. The step-by-step guide starts with the inception of the conflict and carries through the difficult conversation’s conclusion, arming readers with the skills and confidence to fight for their principles.

Trading information is an essential aspect of the negotiations that underpin planning practice across the globe. In this book, Alex Lord uses information economics to outline a way of thinking about these negotiations that places the strategies that actors in the planning game use at the heart of the debate. Dialogue between economics and planning theorists has been, until now, rare. Lord argues that information economics’ tool kit, game theory – including well-known examples such as the Prisoners’ Dilemma, the Stag Hunt game and Follow the Leader – offers an analytical framework ideally suited to unpacking planning processes. This use of game theory to understand how counterparties interact draws together two distinct bodies of literature: firstly the mainstream economics treatment of games in abstract form and, secondly, accounts of actual bargaining in planning practice from a host of international empirical studies. Providing a novel alternative to existing theories of planning, The Planning Game provides an explanation of how agencies interact in shaping the trajectory of development through the application of game theory to planning practice.

The technological revolution in the social sciences made available a set of research tools and data manipulation techniques that permit the study of complex social processes previously inaccessible or not amenable to our observational powers. One important set of tools took the generic title "experimental games," which were characterized by the interactive protagonists' pursuit of relatively well-defined goals whose achievement is dependent on the behavior of others. James T. Tedeschi, Barry R. Schlenker, and Thomas V. Bonoma, in this work, explicate these highly structured interactions. The grand strategy of scientific inquiry is the development of explanatory systems for natural phenomena. The empirical tactics devised to manipulate, control, observe, and measure events or processes of interest often require as much ingenuity and imagination as theory development itself. Generally the situation is so structured that certain rules govern participant behavior. Within these constraints the social psychological processes of conflict, influence, power, bargaining, and coalition formation can be studied. Concerned with the more formal and technical aspects of games, the authors explain how they are used for purposes of developing and testing scientific theory. The emphasis throughout is on the development and empirical evaluation of a scientific theory of social influence and power in situations where the interests of the interacting parties are in conflict. Experimental games have provided many of the concepts and the preponderance of evidence that have helped to unravel many of the complexities of social behavior. In Conflict, Power, and Games, the authors build a bridge between technical and non-technical approaches in order to shed greater light on interpersonal relations.