Nowak also makes an interesting point:

"There is one thing that I have learned in my studies of cooperation over the last 20 years: there is no equilibrium. There is never a stable equilibrium. Cooperation is always being destroyed and has to be rebuilt. How much time you spend on average in a cooperative state depends on how quickly you can rebuild it. The most important aspect is really how quickly you can get away from the Always defect again."

If we are trying to encourage cooperative behaviours in organizations or communities of practice, we need to note that it is always a work in progress.