Game Theory at Work: How to Use Game Theory to Outthink and Outmaneuver Your Competition (Hardcover)

~ James Miller (Author) "YOUR LIFE CONSISTS OF GAMES, situations in which you compete for a high score..." (more)
Key Phrases: outguessing games, game theory land, merely attractive women, Player One, Player Two, United States (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

An easy-to-follow, non-technical approach to using game theory in every business battle

Game theory has become entrenched in today's business world. It has also often required oppressive and incomprehensible mathematics. Game Theory at Work steers around math and pedagogy to make this innovative tool accessible to a larger audience and allow all levels of business to use it to both improve decision-making skills and eliminate potentially lethal uncertainty.

This proven tool requires everyone in an organization to look at the competition, guage his or her own responses to their actions, and then establish an appropriate strategy. Game Theory at Work will help business leaders at all levels improve their overall performance in:

• Negotiating
• Decision making
• Establishing strategic alliances
• Marketing
• Positioning
• Branding
• Pricing

From the Back Cover

Easy-to-Follow Strategies for Using Game Theory to Grab the Upper Hand in Every Business Battle

Game theory--the study of how competitors act, react, and interact in the strategic pursuit of their own self-interest--has become an essential competitive tool in today's business arena. Game Theory at Work provides examples of how businesspeople can use this time-proven approach to successfully meet competitive challenges and, more often than not, claim the upper ground in each battle before it begins.

Game Theory at Work steers clear of the opaque mathematics and pedagogy that so often hamper practitioners of game theory, relying instead on lively case studies and examples to illustrate its remarkable methods in action. Complex yet comprehensible, it provides you with:

• Methods for applying game theory to every facet of business
• Strategies for instantly improving your position in virtually any negotiation
• Game theory techniques to increase the output--and value--of each employee

At its essence, business is a game, albeit a profoundly serious game that must always be played to win. Game Theory at Work is the first plain-English examination of the use of game theory in business. Let it provide you with the intellectual tools you need to instantly understand every game you're playing, use that knowledge to your advantage, and consistently maximize your finish-line payoff.

"Game Theory at Work won't teach you about power-chants, discuss the importance of balancing work and family, or inspire you to become a more caring leader. This book will instead help you out-strategize, or at least keep up with, competitors inside and outside your company."--From the Introduction

Like Sun Tzu's timeless The Art of War, Game Theory at Work is about knowing your adversary as well as yourself. It is also about using that knowledge to prepare yourself for victory.

But above all, this one-of-a-kind book is about dramatically improving your strategic instincts and decision-making skills--and emerging victorious--in virtually any business encounter.

Introduced by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern in their 1944 book Theory of Games and Economic Behavior, and further honed through the decades by thought leaders including Nobel Prize winner John Nash, game theory analyzes strategic interactions in which the outcomes of various choices depend on the choices of others. Game Theory at Work applies this innovative tool to the world of business, and provides a step-by-step framework for using game theory to improve your on-the-job success in areas including:

• Negotiating
• Managing
• Pricing
• Positioning
• Establishing strategic alliances

More than that, however, Game Theory at Work is a one-of-a-kind tool to battle the high costs of indecision. It shows you how to enter any encounter confident in how others will act, and then use game theory to base your strategies and actions on this knowledge. Case studies, puzzles, and, yes, games demonstrate why unexpected and often paradoxical results are the norm when humans compete, and help you use this fact to your advantage. And, chapter-ending lessons highlight essential rules learned.

... All in a book that is both absorbing and entertaining, designed to improve your business instincts without requiring the use of needless mathematics or theoretical mumbo-jumbo.

Everything in life is competitive in one way or another, and game theory has revolutionized the art and science of what to look for--and how to act--when engaged in competition. Game Theory at Work studies the use of game theory in today's hard-fought business arena, and shows you how to use it to gain maximum advantage in every professional encounter, whatever your role in that encounter.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (March 13, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071400206
• ISBN-13: 978-0071400206
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #345,805 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Review after reading so many negative reviews, February 28, 2004

By	Kao Lap Shing (Hong Kong) - See all my reviews

I bought this book before knowing these unfavorable comments of this book.

I have studied some game theory stuff at postgraduate level. I have read three chapters of this book: Ch.10 on price discrimination; Ch.14 on bargaining and Ch.15 on auctions. Frankly speaking, the materials and examples given in the book are not new. You can easily find them all in Thinking Strategically, Coopetition, Information Rules and some other game theory books. For a reader who has already read some other similar introductory books on game theory, you can save your money. However, if you are new to game theory, this book is worth reading. The writing style is entertaining and the examples are clearly explained.

110 of 159 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars James Miller needs a reality check, August 28, 2003

By	G. Thompson (Missouri, United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

First off, let me say that there is very little useful information contained in this book. The only thing I can conclude is that other 2 reviews before mine were done by friends of the author of this book, James Miller.

James begins the book with a direct insult to the reader, stating things such as quote "...Beware, however, if you end up enjoying this book, it's not because I wrote it for the purpose of making you happy. I wrote it to maximize my own payoff. I don't care, in any way, about your welfare." He also goes on to arrogantly and blatently say basically that the reader is stupid and that he has much better things to do than to be writing this book.

I totally agree...he should not have written this book. It does very little to aid in the understanding of Game Theory and its practical application in real world scenarios. Most of the information contained within the book is either common sense or flat out WRONG, both factually and practically. What is not either wrong or common sense can easily fall into the "worthless trivia" section.

Let me give you one of Mr. Miller's examples located on page 8 and 9:

Let's say that you are a parent and you are worried about your daughter becoming pregnant. If you threaten your daughter with being kicked out of the house if she becomes pregnant, his basic rationale says that if you love her and she knows it, your threats will be ineffective and she will therefore have no incentive to not become pregnant. However, James points out that the solution to the problem is to demonstrante to your daughter that you in fact do NOT love her which would in turn say to her that you would most definitely make good on your threat of kicking her out of the house in the event she became pregnant.

Application of Game Theory? Yes, kindof...but "real world" useful application of Game Theory, no way. You and I both know that in reality, things simply don't work that way between real, living, breathing people. People have feelings and emotions and many of the examples in this book do not take into account what would REALLY happen in the real world.

If that is how you view the world, then I can summarize Miller's entire book and examples by saying "The best way to use Game Theory in real world situations is to just think of the best way you can screw other people and be an arrogant SOB"...and if that is true, then I guess Miller is the world's greatest Game Theorist.

36 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Useful but there's a question of ethics , August 17, 2005

By	Jacques Laroque (Michigan USA) - See all my reviews

While I'm for any book which may prove useful in life and grant that Mr. Miller's might be one of those, I see by other reviews and by my own investigation that Mr. Miller's wife, Prof. Debbie Felton Miller, has not only given her husband's book a 5-star rating but has co-authored at least two other articles & books with him. This info is from the umass.edu website in the "faculty" section as follows:
Recent Publications
2002. With James D. Miller. Using Greek Mythology to Teach Game Theory. The American Economist 46.2.

2002. With James D. Miller. Truth Inducement in Greek Myth. Syllecta Classica 13.104-25. <end>

This calls into question the ethics and honesty of both the author and this "educator" who is tenured at the University of Massachussets. Another point worth mentioning is that David Miller is a contributing editor at Tech Central Station which is an online platform for conservative and right-wing political types. (I've been reading his and other articles there) - [...]

I would not recommend this book, unless one is interested in being persuaded to accept questionable ideologies and questionable ethics of the "me first" variety.