Counting the whole table

At a family gathering in Jeddah, the same uncle wins the card game every Friday night.

He is good, and he is kind about it, but by the third round the younger cousins have stopped trying. The outcome is known. The game carries on because it always does.

Then one evening an aunt suggests a different way to keep score. Not who beats whom, but how many points the whole table makes together. Same cards, same deal, same rules of play. Only the thing being counted has changed.

The room changes with it. The uncle starts setting up plays for the cousins instead of blocking them. People talk across the table about what might work. A quiet niece, who never bothered before, makes a move that surprises everyone, and everyone is pleased.

Another night they try something else: whoever is furthest behind may break one rule per round. The gap closes on its own, and the last hand matters again.

None of this is a revolution. The game is still the game. But it is a reminder of something easy to forget, which is that every game was made by somebody, and the way people behave inside it is mostly a result of what it rewards.

Most of the contests around us work the same way. The loyalty scheme that makes customers chase points instead of value. The league table that turns colleagues into rivals. The neighbourhood where every shop fights for the same corner. We treat these as facts of nature. They are just the scoring.

Change what gets counted, gently, and people will play differently without being told to.

The cards were never the problem.