Strategic thinking course: changing the game
Stop playing a bad game well: change the players, rules, timing or stakes, and make your threats, promises and signals believable.
About this course
Most strategy advice tells you how to play a game well. This course is about changing the game itself: who plays, what the rules are, when moves happen and what is at stake. It is the difference between haggling harder and making the haggle unnecessary.
You will redesign real business situations by hand: an e-bike maker facing price rises from a locked-in supplier, a hotel group shortlisting furniture suppliers, a food manufacturer claiming damages from a cartel. Each one is solved with game trees you build and check yourself.
Who it's for: Managers, founders and buyers who already know the basics of game theory and want to use commitment, threats and signals deliberately.
What you'll be able to do
- Redesign an unfavourable game by changing its players, rules, timing or stakes
- Build commitments that make your threats and promises believable, and spot when the other side's are empty
- Price a strategic move: work out when a lever, a second source or a commitment is worth what it costs
- Send and read signals that carry real information, and tell them apart from cheap talk
Syllabus: 9 lessons
Redesign the game
Module 1Don't play the game, design it
In Course 1 you took each game as given and found the best move. This course is about something bigger: choosing which game gets played in the first place.
Tie your own hands
The commitment problem: you can't make a threat or a promise believable, because when the moment comes you'd rather not carry it out. Everyone can see that, so nobody believes you.
Commitment that flips the game
Back to IBM and Intel from Course 1. Intel was IBM's only chip source. IBM could stick with Intel, or build up AMD as a rival. Payoffs are shares of the profit pool, invented for teaching.
Threats and levers
Module 2Make your threat credible
A threat counts only if carrying it out is your best move when the time comes. Here's how a game theorist would read a public story from 2019. Payoffs are invented for teaching, in $bn.
The cost-creep case: four fixes
An e-bike maker buys all its motors from one supplier. Six months after launch, the supplier asks for a big price rise per motor.
When is a lever worth pulling?
A lever is anything you can offer or withhold to change the other side's choice: a carrot adds value for them, a stick takes it away. Course 5 covers listing and mapping them.
Signals and reputation
Module 3Signals: making information believable
Many games turn on something only one side knows: a supplier's real quality, a buyer's real budget. The side with the information can try to prove it (signalling).
Five mistakes strategists make
Course 1 started with five rules to keep: define all the players, consider all the options, examine the outcomes, think from the end, and anticipate the next game.
Credibility over time: the cartel damages case
A food manufacturer has damages claims against three packaging suppliers that a competition authority fined for running a cartel. Economists have estimated the overcharge.
Final assessment and certificate
Ten questions on fresh scenarios. Score 7 or more and your certificate is issued straight away.
Questions
How long does the course take?
About 2.1 hours: 9 lessons totalling 114 minutes, plus a 10-minute final assessment. It's self-paced, so you can stop after any lesson and pick up where you left off.
Do I get a certificate?
Yes. Pass the 10-question final assessment (7 out of 10) and you get a certificate of completion with your name and a verification ID. You can retake the assessment as often as you like.
How much does it cost?
£9.89, a one-off payment with lifetime access. Signing up is free, and the first lesson, "Don't play the game, design it", is free to play before you buy.
Do I need to know any maths?
No. Everything is explained in plain English with small, worked numbers. If you can compare two prices, you can do this course.
How is it taught?
Every lesson is interactive: you play a game, make a choice or move a slider first, then the idea behind it is explained. There are no videos to sit through.