In 1980, political scientist Robert Axelrod launched a tournament to test one thing: Whatâs the smartest way to navigate trust and betrayal?
Contestants submitted strategies that would pit them against each other in repeated games of Prisonerâs Dilemma. This is a classic model for cooperation under uncertainty. The surprising winner wasnât the most aggressive or complex strategy. It was a humble little algorithm called Tit for Tat. This strategy operated on four basic principles:
Start Nice
Reciprocate
Donât Escalate
Forgive
This approach kept winning because it was not focused on dominating the other side. It focused on building trust, quickly recovering from betrayal, and keeping the long game in mind. If this sounds familiar to you itâs because youâve seen healthy project and organizational environments that operate in much the same way.
The Game Behind the Game
Axelrodâs tournament wasnât about abstract math but rather about behavior. Cooperation, retaliation, and grace under fire play out daily in your project ecosystem. Think of every interaction across a program or portfolio. Trust builds, or breaks, based on how people respond to change, mistakes, or pressure. If it goes in the negative direction, culture defaults to fear and blame ultimately making escalation the norm.
Why Trust Is a Performance Multiplier
New and optimized processes alone are not the way out of a low-trust culture. Trust accelerates everything including faster decisions, honest conversations, effective engagement, and improved ownership of situations. Itâs the real velocity engine for positive change in the organization. It shifts the teamâs mindset from a win-lose to win-win.
The Project-Driven Culture in Action
When organizations are dealing with critical change initiatives that are highly connected to their very existence, a positive project driven culture becomes a critical success factor. It can be seen In the following characteristics:
High Tempo: Decisions donât wait, meetings have purpose, and progress is visible.
Trust-Based Accountability: No micromanagement, people commit and deliver.
Shared Wins: Success is collective, credit flows to where the work got done.
In this kind of culture, collaboration changes from being a slogan on the wall to how things get done. It is reinforced by consistent language, maturity in execution, and career frameworks that support practitioners. Ultimately it becomes a culture by design.
The Cultural Shift That Lasts
A lot of leaders talk about culture but how often do they spend time architecting it? Project-driven culture is a strategic choice that starts with small, deliberate habits that center around trust and accountability that results in transparency and shared responsibility.
In our RapidStartPMO approach we encourage practitioners to consider cultural readiness when approaching PMO design and launch projects. This readiness centers around a framework that is called SERVE to support leaders through the journey. Its elements include:
Split-Focused: Balance delivery and capability-building
Embedded: Operate inside the work, not just alongside it
Results-Driven: Deliver early and often
Value-Centric: Align with strategic goals
Evolving: Adapt scope and method as the org matures
This approach helps make the positive culture stick.
Final Thought: Would Axelrodâs Winner Survive in Your Org?
Tit for Tat works because itâs simple, strategic, and trust based. Unfortunately, in many organizations individuals who follow this model of cooperation, responsiveness, and forgiveness get burned or ignored.
The real test is this. Would Axelrodâs strategy thrive in your environment or get crushed by it? If it wouldnât survive, it might be time to rebuild the real operating system: culture.
PS: I first learned about Axelrod through a fantastic YouTube video. Itâs not mine, but worth watching.
If you want the link, drop a comment and Iâll DM it to you.