The Marshmallow Problem: Why Low Ego Teams Win

There is a famous design challenge used around the world in leadership workshops. The rules are simple: build the tallest free-standing tower you can using spaghetti, tape, string, and one marshmallow — which must sit on top.

Four groups are often compared:

• Kindergarteners
• CEOs
• Lawyers
• MBA or business students

Session after session, something almost unbelievable happens: the kindergarteners win. The MBA students consistently come last.

This story has been told thousands of times because it captures one of the most important principles in strategy and leadership:

• Ego destroys performance.
• Experimentation beats planning.
• Play creates collaboration.
• Trying to look smart is the enemy of actually doing something smart.

This article explores why the children outperform the "professionals" and what that means for leadership, teamwork, organisational design, and strategic execution in your business.

1. The Unexpected Winners: Why the Kindergarteners Outperform Everyone

At first glance, this should not happen. How can five-year-olds with no business knowledge, no analytical frameworks, no leadership theories, and no communication training outperform adults with postgraduate degrees?

It comes down to behaviour, not knowledge.

Kids don't care about status — so they collaborate.

• There is no jockeying for leadership or subtle political moves.
• No one is trying to win the "smartest person in the room" contest.
• They simply roll up their sleeves and start building.

Kids don't fear being wrong — so they experiment constantly.

• They do not waste time debating who has the best idea.
• They try something, see if it works, fix it, and try again.

Kids approach the challenge as play — and play accelerates creativity.

• Play reduces fear.
• Play increases curiosity.
• Play boosts cooperation.
• Play allows rapid iteration without ego.

What looks like "childishness" is really an incredibly effective form of agile, low-ego, high-collaboration prototyping. They do not overthink. They do not overplan. They simply iterate.

2. The Struggle of the Highly Educated: Why MBAs Come Last

MBA students and high-status professionals behave very differently. They tend to start with:

• Planning
• Discussion
• Role negotiation
• Analysis
• Debate
• Theory

They build one beautiful, carefully analysed design — and then place the marshmallow on top in the final 30 seconds. It collapses almost every time.

Why? Because the real test is not planning — it is adapting.

• The marshmallow is heavier than it looks.
• The spaghetti flexes more than expected.
• The structure needs real-world testing, not boardroom theorising.

Yet MBA teams fall into predictable traps:

1. Ego wants to win the discussion, not the challenge.
   People argue for their idea instead of testing the best idea.
2. Overconfidence replaces experimentation.
   They rely on a big "final reveal" instead of iterative learning.
3. Fear of looking wrong kills creativity.
   No one wants to be the first to try something risky — or worse, something that fails publicly.

The result is a fragile, untested, over-planned structure that falls apart under pressure.

Sound familiar? This is the same pattern that sinks strategic plans, project teams, innovation programs, and organisational transformations every day.

3. The Strategic Lesson: Low Ego Is a Competitive Advantage

The Marshmallow Challenge reveals a strategic truth leaders often overlook:

The teams that move quickly, experiment early, collaborate openly, and check their ego at the door consistently outperform those with superior knowledge but inferior culture.

In strategic execution, the biggest failures rarely come from lack of intelligence. They come from:

• Slow decision-making
• Overanalysis
• Political tension
• Leaders trying to "be right"
• Fear of being wrong
• A single big plan instead of continuous iteration

When ego rises, experimentation dies. When experimentation dies, strategy fails.

4. Why Playfulness Is a Strategic Weapon

Professional environments often treat "play" as unprofessional or unserious. But in the Marshmallow Challenge — and in real organisations — playfulness is strategic because it frees the mind from the fear of failure.

A playful mindset:

• Reduces internal competition
• Encourages shared ownership
• Increases willingness to test, adapt, and try again
• Creates psychological safety
• Accelerates learning under pressure

This does not mean being silly. It means adopting a mindset where curiosity replaces caution.

The organisations that learn fastest win. The organisations that fear mistakes die slowly.

5. Experience Still Matters — But Only When Ego Does Not Strangle It

It is not that CEOs or engineers are bad at the challenge. In fact, engineers often perform exceptionally well — because they naturally prototype.

The difference is simple:
Experience amplifies performance only when ego is not choking experimentation.

When experienced teams:

• Communicate openly
• Test quickly
• Stay curious
• Stay humble
• Avoid politics
• Embrace the unknown

…their experience becomes a superpower. When they do not, it becomes a liability.

6. What This Means for Your Business, Team, and Strategy

The Marshmallow Challenge is not really about spaghetti. It is about how humans work together under pressure.

It tells us that high-performing teams consistently share three characteristics:

• Low ego
• High curiosity
• Fast iteration

These are the exact qualities required for:

• Strategic planning
• Transformation programs
• Technology implementation
• Process redesign
• Innovation and prototyping
• Business model reinvention
• Cross-functional collaboration

They are also the qualities missing in teams that:

• Argue endlessly
• Stall on decisions
• Overanalyse every move
• Build political walls between functions
• Get stuck in loops of "planning to plan"
• Collapse under the weight of their own ideas

The Marshmallow Challenge is a microcosm of strategic execution. It is not the smartest team that wins. It is the team that tests assumptions early, adapts quickly, and does not get stuck in ego.

7. Leadership Implications: How to Build Low Ego, High Learning Teams

If you lead a team, the implications are profound. You cannot force people to be smarter, but you can design an environment where low ego and fast learning are the default.

Create a low-ego culture.

• Make it safe to be wrong.
• Reward truth and learning, not titles or volume.

Push for fast, early, ugly prototypes.

• Your first version should be embarrassingly simple.
• If it is not, you probably waited too long.

Replace "prove your idea" with "test our idea."

• Shift from internal competition to shared experimentation.
• Make it normal to run small, low-risk trials.

Encourage play — not childishness, but psychological freedom.

• Use workshops, simulations, and design sprints to explore ideas.
• Signal that curiosity is valued more than having the answer.

Make experimentation part of your operating rhythm.

• Small, fast tests outperform big, polished projects every time.
• Build regular review cycles around what you tested, what you learned, and what you will adjust next.

8. The Final Insight: The Marshmallow Is Every Project

Every strategic initiative has a "marshmallow" — the unknown factor that can collapse your best-laid plans.

You will not find that risk in planning sessions. You only find it in testing.

The fastest learners win. The lowest-ego teams win. The best collaborators win.

When in doubt, build like a kindergartener. Move quickly, test early, stay curious, and treat strategy as an ongoing experiment rather than a one-off presentation.

If you would like to turn this way of thinking into a repeatable strategic process, you may also like 7-Step Strategy Framework That Actually Works for a practical model to move from rough ideas to a clear, backed plan your team can execute.