The Art of Strategy: A Game Theorist's Guide to Success in Business and Life

by Avinash K. Dixit

Both these tactics make it more costly to break the commitment than to keep it. A second avenue is to change the game by limiting your ability to back out of a commitment. In this category, we consider three possibilities: 3. Cut off communication. 4. Burn bridges behind you. 5. Leave the outcome beyond your control, or even to chance. These two principles can be combined: the available actions and their payoffs can both be changed. If a large commitment is broken down into many smaller ones, then the gain from breaking a little one may be more than offset by the loss of the remaining contract. Thus we have: 6. Move in small steps. A third route is to use others to help you maintain commitment. A team may achieve credibility more easily than an individual. Or you may simply hire others to act in your behalf. 7. Develop credibility through teamwork. 8. Employ mandated agents.