Back in 2009, Stanford prof Tina Seelig split students in the school of engineering into teams and gave them an envelope containing $5.
Teams had only two hours to generate as much money as possible. Each team would get three minutes to present their project to the entire class.
Here is Tina’s own article explaining the experience: The $5 Challenge
What would be your Strategy?
Check out the video below to hear how the challenge went… and how to use this thinking in your own life and business…
The teams that made the most money didn’t use the five dollars at all.
They realised that focusing on the money actually framed the problem way too tightly. They understood that five dollars is essentially nothing and decided to reinterpret the problem more broadly: What can we do to make money if we start with absolutely nothing?
In our own lives and businesses it is very easy to limit ourselves to “how do I do more of what I am already good at?” or “How do I use my current capacities to maximise return?”.
How do you do strategy for your life and business?
- Some reflections on good strategy
- How to do Business Model thinking
- How to be lucky: 4 ways to improve your luck in life
It feels good to share a video again… it has been 6 weeks of procrastination. Thanks to all of you who reached out with encouragements and ideas!