Confucius’ role-play

In a role-play, you find yourself in somebody else’s shoes and get to understand their perspective. What I will never forget is my participation in a role-play on groundwater exploitation in the Middle East. Only ten minutes into this game, my partner whispered in my ear that he had just robbed the bank. He had found the safe unattended, so he stuck piles of money under his jacket and left. I was shocked, but soon realized that we had to act in order to play the game well.

Then, I approached other participants with a financial offer they could not refuse. People wondered where all this money came from, but welcomed our support for their profitable but exploitative use of groundwater. With hindsight, I was struck by how quickly I engaged in corruption to move business forward. Bodily experiencing and observing such behavioral shifts is a profound sensation. This beats a discussion many times.