During the fourth round of The Start-Up Game™, a business simulation that fosters innovation and entrepreneurship, players are required to randomly select a number of boxes on a digitised screen. Depending on their “luck”, their choice of boxes will result on one of three options: they will increase the monetary value of their Start-Up, they will go out of business, or their Start-Up will fail. All players are aware that, to complete the game, they will end up with one of these three outcomes. This means that the “Luck Factor” will be in full force! As games are often metaphors for what occurs in ‘real life’, some of us, when building a Start-Up business will face these same three outcomes. We will be challenged by a number of external factors that will either ‘make or break’ us; we may experience exponential growth from an unexpected source, we may have to face combative competition that causes us to exit from a customer segment or market, or we may fail due to a cash flow or capability challenge. In the Start-Up Game™ the facilitator deliberately provokes and challenges players with opportunities to make ‘deals’, this may be a cash offer to influence the team to change their selection decision, a generous cash offer to buy their Start-Up outright and exit the game, or a significant cash offer to a player to leave their Start-Up and join another team. Teams are encouraged to actively debate their decisions, and it is during this process, that the “Luck Factor” occurs. Knowing that innovators and entrepreneurs embody growth mindsets they realise the value of challenging themselves and the importance of their efforts.
Having this positive mindset actually creates success and good “luck”.
In ‘The Luck Factor’, Richard Wiseman reveals four main differences between the lives of lucky and unlucky people:
- Lucky people create, notice and act upon the chance opportunities in their lives. In contrast, unlucky people rarely have these sorts of experiences, or they meet people who have a negative effect on their lives.
- Lucky people make successful decisions by using their intuition and gut feelings. Unlucky peoples decisions tend to result in despair and failure.
- Lucky people’s expectations about the future help them fulfil their dreams and ambitions. Unlucky people are the exact opposite.
- Lucky people are able to transform their bad luck into good fortune. Unlucky people lack this ability and their bad luck causes nothing but upset and ruin.
These four principles set the context for round four of the Start-Up Game™, despite having so many random factors outside of their control, players will successfully complete the game, if they take charge of the “luck “ factor by:
- Deeply observing, listening for possibilities and actively debating to reveal opportunities behind the deals offered to them.
- Exploring, investigating and challenging each other’s gut and intuition around the deals.
- Staying true to their Start-Up team’s vision and expectations of success and taking positive action to elicit more creative and potentially beneficial deals.
Finally, the Start-Up Game™ reinforces the fact that successful innovators and entrepreneurs have growth mindsets and the “luck” to ‘see’ and act on opportunities. Entrepreneurs challenge the process by taking calculated risks through intuitive and gut decision making, validated by deep generative debate and entrepreneurs hold true to their vision and expectations of success and are then perseverant and resilient in the face of adversity, failure and challenge. So take a moment to consider what can you do to enhance your entrepreneurial and innovators “luck”? For more information about The Start-Up Game™, please visit http://www.imaginenation.co.il/the-start-up-game/
