Scissors Beats Paper

To become more competitive in the global market, American companies need to imitate their Japanese counterparts*. From the NYTimes.

Takashi Hashiyama...could not decide whether Christie's or Sotheby's should sell [his] company's art collection, which is worth more than $20 million, at next week's auctions in New York. He did not split the collection - which includes an important Cézanne landscape, an early Picasso street scene and a rare van Gogh view from the artist's Paris apartment - between the two houses, as sometimes happens. Nor did he decide to abandon the auction process and sell the paintings through a private dealer.

Instead, he resorted to an ancient method of decision-making that has been time-tested on playgrounds around the world: rock breaks scissors, scissors cuts paper, paper smothers rock...

Mr. Maclean's 11-year-old twins, Flora and Alice, turned out to be the experts Ms. Ishibashi was looking for. They play the game at school, Alice said, "practically every day." "Everybody knows you always start with scissors," she added. "Rock is way too obvious, and scissors beats paper." Flora piped in. "Since they were beginners, scissors was definitely the safest," she said, adding that if the other side were also to choose scissors and another round was required, the correct play would be to stick to scissors - because, as Alice explained, "Everybody expects you to choose rock"...

Instead of the usual method of playing the game with the hands, the teams were given a form explaining the rules. They were then asked to write one word in Japanese - rock, paper or scissors - on the paper. After each house had entered its decision, a Maspro manager looked at the choices. Christie's was the winner: scissors beat paper.

Words fail me.

*C'mon, work with me here - you remember the 1980's, doncha?