Would you prefer a transactional or a transformational game?

Which of the following situations do you prefer personally in a business context, where would you feel more comfortable with?
The following task, "baking cookies," is intended to serve as a metaphor for all the typical work tasks and situations we are encountering in our daily work.

1. A colleague approaches you and says: "I'm going to take one more cookie from the tin. Our colleague shouldn't be upset if there's one less cookie left for him."

2. A colleague approaches you and says: "You can take a cookie from the tin first if you help me."

3. A colleague approaches you and says: "Let's bake some more cookies together so everyone can satisfy their needs!"

In the first two situations, you find yourself in a so-called transactional game:

• In Situation 1, a contract to the detriment of third parties is proposed or concluded. And it can be even worse: it's an indirect invitation to do the same and increase the "minus" on the side of the third party.

• In Situation 2, a contract is proposed and/or concluded between two parties. Depending on who has exploited more bargaining power, they feel better or worse afterwards.

In the latter situation, you find yourself in a transformational game:

• It's an indirect invitation to join a team in which - with high probability - the achievable result can increase through through division of labor and specialization and is greater and stronger than the results that would be achievable if everyone works separately.

Is it possible to form a team where the majority of team members play only transactional games with each other?

• Probably not, because it's hard to imagine that the members of this group are committed to common values ​​and/or goals.

• Such a group is probably more like an organizational unit with a leader who doesn't consider it to be important to have a team, where all employees work together and act as a unit.

Is it possible to destroy a team if one or perhaps several members begin to negotiate "contracts" among themselves in pairs or between subgroups instead of playing the transformational game, thus prioritizing the transactions within a transactional game over the team's values ​​and goals?

• Yes, definitely. In German-speaking countries, such a person would even be called a splitter in extreme cases.

• I would even say that the split in the team begins at the latest when more than two people start transactional play among themselves and put the team's interests aside.

The situations described above, their effects, and the associated obvious insights can be abstracted and also used for the topic of employee management, generalizing these insights to the level of leadership:

Transactional Leadership vs. Transformational Leadership according to Hersey and Blanchard:

Task Orientation	high	low
Employee Orientation
high / more transformational	selling: integrative leadership style	participating: participative leadership style
low / more transactional	telling: authoritarian leadership style	delegating: delegation style