A diversified Multinational Company decided as a result of an Economic Value Add (EVA) exercise to merge all of its affiliates into one to save US $10M in operating expenses from a US $100M revenue stream. Mr. Gonzalez was hired to complete the merger by building a new HRIS to manage the new employment base. However, upon his joining the project he was asked to assess the whole organization and to provide a slate of candidates for the top 5 most senior positions for the new company from a pool of 25 executives. Even though Mr. Gonzalez had no previous experience with this type of project, he used the Prisoner Dilemma methodology to secure the required data points to select the best in class candidate for each role. Mr. Gonzalez interviewed the 25 executives and elicited the virtues and most importantly the shortcomings of each executive. He correlated the answers and presented a slate to the New Regional Director for his approval. Based on the 100% overlap against the Regional Director’s own slate Mr. Gonzalez won instant credibility and was able to go through the five levels of the organization in record time.

The Prisoner’s Dilemma indicates that the best outcome for the two criminals is to say nothing to the Police. However, when the Police offer the incentive of a reduced sentence usually one of the two actors agrees to cooperate first because he or she is not ultimately sure if the other person will really stay quiet. In this case, each executive wanted the top role, so each shared their virtues but communicated the shortfall of the other potential candidates with equal or more vehemence. The correlation of this cascade event produced valuable data as to whom was best qualified for each role and those who were least qualified.