What exactly is cheating?

Cheating.

We all think we know what it means. But Gandalf, a professor of mine, told us on the very first day of class that he defines cheating as one student's refusal to help another student learn something. In his molasses-smothered voice, Gandalf recounted a tale in which he discovered one study group had refused to lend a hand to another study group when aid was requested. So, he dragged the unhelpful crew to the Academic Ethics Board and demanded they be written up for cheating. They couldn't figure him out so they threw out the case.

Now, in addition to that being a fabulous story from a very wise man, it gives us opportunity for pause. I mean, we're all supposed to be collaborating as a team, right? In the "real world," no one has to take a test by herself, write up a memo by herself, create a powerpoint presentation by herself. Of course not! We all seek out input from smarter people. Why on earth should the academic world measure us by some other construct?

Unfortunately, in The G Unit, the collective wisdom ain't really all it's cracked up to be. Here I am, thinking I'm in the smartest, funnest, wittiest, bestest cohort of the Gang of 100. So, in accordance to Gandalf's definition of cheating, we took our first (open book) quiz collectively. That's right, we split up the questions so each study group answered five questions and shared the answers with each other. We had a great time, arguing over a couple of tough questions, laughing about this new way of taking quizzes, and relieved because most people hadn't read all five chapters.

We collectively scored around 70%.

Boy, we're lame. Even with an open book/open note, collaborative quiz we answered 30% of the questions incorrectly. So much for teamwork and the future of corporate America. You'll be glad to know, however, that we've scored slightly better on subsequent quizzes.

But the cheating story gets better. Last week, the integrity of The G Unit was put to the test when we had to run through an exercise in class that required collaboration and trust. The idea behind the "game" was to tempt teams to cheat. On the surface, it looked like if your team screwed over the other teams, you would earn the highest payout. Except that at the end of the day, the game was set up such that all teams had to collaborate in order to win the maximum payout. A cheating team could "win" but not as much as if they had collaborated.

Unfortunately, The G Unit failed. The teams negotiated, came up with an agreement, but when push came to shove, two teams went against their word to "cheat." It completely destroyed the trust and suddenly the dynamic in the room turned contentious and suspicious. It was actually pretty remarkable that a group generally so collegial, friendly and trusting could dissolve into such behavior. There was a moment in the negotiations where I thought trust could have been restored, but when the "non-cheating" teams decided to confer together, the "cheating" teams immediately assumed the other teams were out to get them -- and again, the trust vanished.

What a lesson in building trust, in negotiation, in human nature. And this example was only between folks who know each other and generally like each other! Imagine what these sorts of talks are like between warring nations or antagonistic parties.