The happy money story game.
A way to make effortless financial agreements
(and never argue about money in restaurants)
When a group of people need to negotiate an agreement that involves money, they can turn it into a fun and effortless game that pitches storytelling talents against each other and makes the path to a deal genuinely enjoyable and convivial.
The game works like this:
Take it in turns to explain who should pay how much and why.
Whoever comes up with an explanation everyone is happy with is the winner.
The game was born after a sociable work dinner with three friends of mine - Adam, Lucy and Laurence - in a north London kebab restaurant. After a very creative evening coming up with ideas for new projects, we just had the matter of working out who paid for dinner. That thing. So I proposed we play The Happy Money Story Game - and made it up as we went.
Here’s how it goes.
So, I might say, well, Adam invited us all here, so as the host, he should buy us all dinner.
And if everyone were happy with that, then I would be the winner - having told the best story about the money.
But maybe Adam isn't happy with that suggestion. So he takes his turn to tell a better story. We are all grown-ups, he might say, and we're not talking about vast sums of money - so we should just split it four ways.
And if everyone were happy with that, then Adam would be the winner.
And that is how the game unfolds. Each participant competing to be the best storyteller. Listening for what has been suggested and rejected and refining their story so it is the most elegant, fitting suggestion. It's an art. And it's genuinely entertaining.
And it solves that age-old nightmare of people arguing over restaurant bills.
But the reason I love it (and still use it often) is that it works in basically any financial discussion. Whether you're talking about who ordered the extra dessert of whether £10,000 is a reasonable price for a piece of work.
When we talk about money, we're never talking about money. We're always talking about what the money represents to us. But because money is numbers, it's easy to end up talking about the numbers alone - as if they're what matters - rather than talking about what they represent. So, even if it's a goofy-titled restaurant hack, the Happy Money Story Game does the vital job of ensuring that enough attention is paid to what the money actually means to each person.
And, like any game, it also creates a kind of micro-culture. The 'rules of the game' establish a new set of norms that, by joining the game, you assent to. So - funnily enough - when you talk about money out there in the world normally, it isn't necessarily a given that part of the intention is that everybody goes home happy. But - funnily enough - if you propose that one of the rules of a game you're being invited to play is that everyone leaves happy, then no one wants to be the one that says they don't want to play by that rule. So it becomes the new ground for the conversation. And, it turns out, that really, really helps.
And there is one other happy trick built into the game that helps change the way we talk about money. Because it's a game (albeit a faintly ridiculous one) and because there is a winner - and because winning is based on storytelling ability - it shifts the focus of competitiveness away from Who Gets The Most Money and instead puts it on Who Tells The Best Story. And, if you play the game, you'll see that that genuinely happens. It's not that people put asides their own interests (because you have to leave happy as well - not just everyone else), it's just that the prestige lies in finding the story that everyone is happy with - and somehow that ends up being more important than going after more money.
And - one more thing - I can’t tell you how much fun this is to play with clients. When I use it to agree a fee with someone I’m working for, sometimes it’s just effortless - and the very first story (whether it’s mine or theirs) might even be the winner. But I also encourage the idea that being wildly wrong and outlandish is part of the fun. Go ahead - say you want to pay nothing, or you want to pay in a year’s time, or you want to pay a percentage of your profits over the next 12 months… There is something so…wildly odd about being kind of carefree and honest and playful at exactly this moment, where you’re navigating costs. It’s a rare thing to experience (on both sides). No matter how outlandish the proposals, we are somehow bound together in the safety of our commitment to finding a story that works for both of us.