Dave Wedaman
Organizational Development Consultant
Wednesday, February 25, 2026 | 1:00PM–2:30PM ET | Online
Webinar | People Usually Don’t Get Along, and What IT Leaders Can Do About It
Altruism and institutional mission often motivate higher education IT leaders. Yet beneath the surface of most organizations lies a powerful reality: cooperation is shaped not only by care but also by hidden competitiveness. Departments compete for scarce resources, stakeholders vie for influence, and teams that ought to support each other don't.
This 90-minute webinar introduces senior IT leaders to Robert Axelrod's classic work, "The Evolution of Cooperation," and its continued relevance to organizational life. Axelrod's research shows how cooperation can emerge and endure in competitive contexts through strategies of reciprocity, clarity, and selective forgiveness.
Participants will explore how hidden competitiveness manifests in higher education IT: in vendor negotiations, cross-departmental projects, and internal team dynamics. They'll consider how to balance generosity with strategic reciprocity, ensuring that their leadership fosters both trust and resilience.
By the webinar's conclusion, participants will have practical strategies for creating cooperative cultures that are robust, capable of withstanding the hidden competitiveness that inevitably shapes organizations.
Learning Outcomes:
- Analyze how hidden competitiveness undermines cooperation in higher education IT contexts, including vendor relationships, cross-departmental collaborations, and internal team dynamics.
- Evaluate, using Axelrod’s cooperation framework, whether cooperative gestures are likely to build trust or invite exploitation in professional relationships.
- Apply Axelrod's principles of reciprocity and selective forgiveness to design a practical intervention for one current leadership challenge where cooperation has stalled.
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