Playa
Gamification studio Cape Town / Everywhere

The human factors that unite your workforce

Your multi-generational workforce may have vastly different and even opposing needs and values. But gamification is a force for engaging and unifying them for success.

Just when you were getting the hang of managing Millennials, the first Gen Alphas (born 2000 – 2015) are skilling up to enter the business fray. And they’re very nearly ripe to descend and rock your management world (again) with their own special perspectives, demands and expectations.

The 5 generation workforce you’ve been managing for a decade or so is about to get even more interesting. Imagine 6 generations standing shoulder to shoulder at the coal face of your business. There are many real and perceived challenges to that scenario, but are there not benefits to such diversity of life experiences, expertise and personal perspectives? And are generational differences really as vast as they’re made out to be? I don’t fit very comfortably in my generational box. Do you?

Human needs, human nature

A recent IT industry survey shows that across generations (a 40-year spread in this case), employees have quite a lot in common on issues that matter: 65% are looking for financial security, 51% want to feel passionate about their work, and 49% want to achieve work- life balance.

Not to diminish the complexity of contemporary human resource challenges, but it seems useful to shift focus from analysing generational differences to leveraging the basic human instincts that unite your workforce. That’s the premise of gamification.

Engage, motivate, unite with gamification

Gamification is the application of elements used in game design (components, mechanics and dynamics) to non-game or real world activities. Done right, adding a little gamification to the workday offers a chance for better engagement. Something you’ll see in most gamified organisations; routine daily tasks turned into engaging experiences.

At its core, gamification is a business solution that works by appealing to intrinsic human needs. Like the need for autonomy, the need to achieve and find purpose, and the need to learn and grow. So even though gamification is rooted in technological innovation, it actually taps into human nature to motivate participation and satisfy needs, which in turn changes behaviour.

There is no age limit on intrinsic human need. According to Scott Buchanan of Nice, ‘gamifying a workday increases commitment, motivates through competition and inspires collaboration’. That goes for the traditionalists who sit on the board, to creative youngsters who’re working from home. Everyone gets a little kick from earning points and badges and there’s nothing like a progress bar to nudge performance and hit the top of the leaderboard. And those are the most basic game mechanics. A full gamification solution is a lot more strategic in applying an array of mechanics and techniques to increase engagement and encourage performance.

Generation Y and Generation Z

You could say that gamification was built for the digital natives we call Millennials and Gen Z. Managers have been struggling with this disengaged group for some time now and gamified work experiences offer the constant stimulation and flexibility that they so greatly desire.

Known to be smart and creative, they, unfortunately, have short attention spans. So turning their work into technologically driven moments which are visually rich and interactive, is appealing.
The key is to keep things innovative and challenging, particularly when it comes to repetitive tasks. Gamification creates a sense of challenge and progression and generally livens up the task at hand.

We know this strategy works for employees in their 20s and 30s because they’ve grown up with tech and expect nothing less than engagement and instant gratification at work. It also gives them tools for personal growth and professional development. Which are important factors for both Gen Y and Gen Z.

Generation X

Born between 1965 and 1981, this group is all tied up in professional development. So any tool that helps them progress is going to be seen as a plus.

Because they grew up amidst incredible technological advancements, they’re not averse to plugging into the typically interactive work experiences that gamification generates. Especially if it relates to career pathing towards management positions, achieving other professional goals and the recognition of their wins.

Give them a way to get what they need to succeed and something that satisfies their competitive appetite and you’ll not only see increased productivity, but you’ll find you have a happy cluster of 40-somethings in your office. All feeling productive and hyper-connected to younger generations (who in turn will be ready to be led by progressive managers).

Baby Boomers

Born between 1946 and 1964,  Baby Boomers generally hold management positions (and struggle the most to engage Gen Y and Z). They’ve worked incredibly hard to get to where they are and so, in most cases, work defines their sense of self.

Known to embrace performance motivation tools that deliver on ROI and productivity, Baby Boomers respect the carefully-crafted, strategic aspect of gamification. Which is seen as a cost-effective way to ‘rally the Millennial troops’.

And because gamification taps into psychological cues that push our day-to-day decisions, it also speaks to their naturally motivated and competitive sensibilities.

Gamification for all

Yes, you have multiple generations under your organisation’s roof. All with vastly different (and sometimes opposing) needs and values.

You could have a workaholic Baby Boomer who calls the office home. A team of Millennials that feel most productive working remotely. A Generation X guy who is having a hard time progressing in the fast-changing professional landscape. And an incredibly innovative Gen Z who battles to stay focused on administrative tasks, but laps up anything in the tech realm. And those Alphas will be on your doorstep soon.

But not to worry. Whether born in 1974 or 2000, the human desire for success, learning opportunities, recognition, remuneration, and reward is ever-present. And at its heart, gamification speaks to those human needs.

How are you motivating the different generations in your workforce? Get in touch and let’s talk about it.

 

Get better survey feedback with gamification

Using gamification to liven up your digital surveys won’t just send the QUALITY of your responses through the roof, it’ll also result in far more QUANTITY. Great news for anyone seeking customer, employee or sales channel feedback.

Easier doesn’t mean better

The proliferation of online survey tools has made both creating surveys and getting instant feedback on them quicker and easier than ever before. But – despite what the authors of The A-Z of Microwave Cooking in South Africa would have you believe – quicker and easier does not necessarily mean better. Quite the opposite, in fact. Because we all receive so many surveys these days, we tend to put less time and effort into answering them.

Gamification to the rescue

Not all survey tools are created equal. The good news is you can use the principles of gamification to drastically improve the quantity and quality of your responses. Gamification is the application of typical elements that make games engaging. Even really simple tweaks can reap massive rewards – and it all starts with a subtle shift in mindset. Put bluntly, the more participants enjoy the survey, the better and more voluminous their answers will be. Increased enjoyment can be achieved through “better design, language and imagery, using more creative questioning techniques and applying learning from behavioural science,” explains Deborah Sleep of Engage Research in the UK.

No one knows more about the benefits of gamifying your surveys than Sleep who – together with Jon Puleston – spent a full year conducting in excess of thirty research experiments with over 5 000 participants on behalf of big guns like Sony Music, Allianz Insurance, AMS Media Group, Heinz, Kimberly-Clark and Mintel Research. Their findings can be used to drastically improve any survey – from customer service and employee engagement to favourite pizza toppings.

It’s not what you ask, but how you ask it

It all starts with reframing your questions so that they draw respondents in. Instead of asking people what food they like to eat, prompt them to come up with their ideal dinner menu. Instead of asking people how much they like a brand, ask “them how happy they would be to wear its name on their T-shirt.”

Imposing a set of rules is another nifty way of transforming a mundane task into a game. How else could something like Farmville – which requires users to pretend to grow virtual vegetables, for crying in a pail – have become so popular? A simple question like “Describe yourself” yielded an average of “2.4 descriptive words.” But asking people to describe themselves in “exactly seven words,” almost doubled the number of descriptors Sleep and Puleston received.

Born to compete

All games – from hopscotch to Olympic sprinting – rely on human beings’ innate desire to compete against one another or the clock. This is why imposing a time limit on survey questions is so effective. Sleep and Puleston found that giving people only two minutes (as opposed to not specifying) to list their favourite foods saw a six-fold increase in the number of answers!

Even promising respondents a virtual brownie point – i.e. nothing, nada, zilch – for every correct answer saw enjoyment rates almost double. What strange, Pavlovian creatures we are.

Visual design matters

How you package your cleverly constructed and carefully worded questions is important too. The use of fun visual and design stimuli has been shown to further buoy respondents’ enjoyment and output.  This can be as simple as using cheerful colours and quirky illustrations to elevate your survey. Or it can be taken to the next level by allowing respondents to drag anchovies and artichokes on to their virtual pizzas. Sleep and Puleston also found that giving instant feedback on answers was really effective.

Little and often

In the old days it was common to complete employee engagement or sales channel surveys on an annual or biannual basis. Advances in technology mean you can now send surveys every day… but you do so at the risk of seriously cheesing off your employees / sales partners. In the last couple of years, innovative firms have leveraged mobile apps to push mini surveys or even single questions to people’s phones.

Provided these tick the gamification boxes outlined above, they can work wonders on the quantity and quality of the data you garner.

Putting the theory into practice

  • Employee engagement surveys are, by definition, supposed to be engaging. But try telling that to the bored workforce of RG Delport and Sons who’ve been answering the same Xeroxed survey every December since 1987. In today’s uber-competitive race for talent you simply can’t afford to have disengaged staff. Making regular use of gamified surveys to find out how employees really feel AND then providing instant (or near instant) feedback that shows how much you care can work wonders for motivation and engagement. You could, for example, push an interactive task to employees’ phones that requires them to allocate the firm’s HR budget for the upcoming financial year. If you’re not doing this kind of thing, you can rest assured your competitors are.
  • “A customer’s experience and feedback should be the only factors that validate important decisions within your business,” writes Rachika Sharma. But most business don’t send out nearly as many customer satisfaction surveys as they should. Unlike employees, customers are not obliged to answer your survey. So here, more than ever, it is vital to ensure that answering the survey is an enjoyable and rewarding experience. To encourage people to take the survey in the first place, you can dangle the carrot of material rewards or discounts, but this will only get you so far. The best way to obtain large amounts of really useful data is to make use of intelligent, gamified surveys that people enjoy completing. For instance, pushing short questions to customer’s social media accounts can prove very effective.
  • The sales channel is an especially tricky area to manage because most reps will simply follow the money, favouring Samsung today and Sony tomorrow. The challenge is to establish genuine loyalty where salespeople prefer a brand for the right reasons. Cleverly crafted and gamified sales channel surveys can be an extremely compelling weapon in your behaviour modification arsenal. Surveys can be used to find out what salespeople really feel about your products and services and they can also be leveraged as educational tools. This could be achieved by getting reps to compete against one another when answering a survey about features and benefits, for example.

It’s never too late to start using the principles of gamification to supercharge both the quantity and quality of your survey responses. Whether you’re looking for better data on employee engagement, customer satisfaction or sales channel motivation, we’d love to help.

 

How gamification can turbocharge sales channel performance

Make the leap from mediocrity to meritocracy. Gamification can create sales superheroes.

Picture the scene. Martin works in a large electronics store selling a wide range of mobile devices across several mobile networks. All of these individual brands – both manufacturers and service providers – give Martin the chance to participate in a rewards program, but each of these rewards programs is remarkably similar. After a while this mountainous monolith of mediocrity leaves Martin bored and apathetic – the exact opposite of what rewards programs are supposed to achieve.

How then can a brand stand out in this crowded space? And even more importantly, how can that same brand effect real behavioural change by rewarding Martin for improved sales performance?

Ready, steady, game

The solution to what is a very common problem in the sales channel arena is surprisingly simple. Regardless of whether you’re in the business of inspiring perfume, cellphone, or lawnmower salespeople, gamification is the one-stop solution that will allow your brand to outshine the competition through education and engagement. Once salespeople learn about your incentive rewards, it follows that sales should increase.

Gamification works wonders in sales channels for several reasons, not least:

  1. It’s fun (a lot more fun than counting the number of air-conditioner vents in the gents’ loo)
  2. It gives instant, constructive feedback on your performance (more than we can say for most human bosses)
  3. It gives you the chance to earn rewards in the true sense of the word (a properly-designed gamification program will include rewards that are both meaningful and customisable)

Enough with the Why. Let’s look at the How

If games are fun, it goes without saying that gamification – “the use of game mechanics and experience design to digitally engage and motivate people to achieve their goals” – should be fun too. But gamification, unlike the games it is inspired by, uses this fun for a very specific and quantifiable goal. In the case of channel salespeople this goal is twofold: to educate, inspire and engage salespeople about your product range and thus increase sales. Luckily the two tend to go hand in hand.

Feedback – whether on new product knowledge or recent sales performance – is a fundamental feature of any gamification program and the same goes for the opportunity to earn rewards. As long as you’re clear on what you want gamification to achieve for your brand (and provided you engage the services of folks who know their stuff) you can achieve incredible bang for your buck (ROI for those who prefer formal terminology).

Here’s a little example

You’ve just launched a new smartphone (or lawnmower or perfume) so you design a fun and attractive infographic to educate salespeople about its features. While the information contained in the infographic might be identical to the product’s technical specifications sheet (zzzzzz, bring on the air conditioner vents), the way the facts are presented encourages salespeople to not only read them, but to actually learn and remember them through challenges, quests and more.

Typically, this infographic might be followed up by a quiz to test how much of this info has been absorbed. Once again, the quiz should look good and be enjoyable to complete – don’t make it feel like a school exam, even if that’s exactly what it is. To stimulate real learning, the quiz should tap into our innate desire to compete against ourselves and/or our peers.

While the quiz’s clever design will go partway towards achieving this goal, the promise of tangible rewards will seal the deal. Once participants know they stand a chance to get something in return for knowing your product backwards, you’ll be amazed at how their engagement soars.

A word about rewards

Even the most innovative and effective gamification techniques can wear thin if participants begin to realise that they are not being truly rewarded for their efforts. Badges and points are all very well, but once you’ve amassed enough of these, you’ll begin to yearn for something more tangible.

Very few people can say no to cold, hard cash, especially if it’s paid out in the middle of the month when there’s only Marmite in the pantry. Material rewards can be great too, as long as you give recipients some choice in the matter (personally I have no use for a blender, but for all I know you’ve spent all day dreaming of a kale smoothie) and experiential rewards also go down a treat. Here, once again, choice is key: an evening of stock car racing is not everyone’s cup of tea. Nor is a macramé course.

A game for all seasons

As shown above, gamification is great at promoting awareness of a new product’s features. But you can use exactly the same logic to enhance participants’ knowledge of your entire product range or to build an understanding of your industry-leading after-sales service, to give but two examples.

What’s more, thoughtful gamification can present scary sales targets in a more friendly (and thus motivating) manner and the judicious use of game mechanics can work wonders for your sales figures. Another great thing about gamification is that it can be personalised: not only will it get demotivated salespeople to up their games, but it will also push highly-motivated sales hounds to even greater heights.

What are you waiting for?

Say adios to sales channel mediocrity and help us to usher in a new era of meritocracy. Let the games begin!

Born to compete

Gamification works because it taps into the powerful and instinctive drive that is our love of competition. We propose harnessing this innate human characteristic for social good. Are you in?

Human beings have developed into the resourceful, intelligent and creative species that we are thanks to millions of years of evolution. As the concept of survival of the fittest has played out, generation after generation after generation, we have forged the characteristics that make us the most successful of all creatures. Now, in the 21st Century, we’ve got a greater understanding of those characteristics than ever before.

The Four Drives

In the early 2000s, after years of exhaustive and extensive research, esteemed Harvard Business School professors Paul Lawrence and Nitin Nohria identified what they called the Four Drives. These four drives, they posited, combine to control everything we do. When the four drives complement each other harmoniously, the theory goes, people, companies and nations do good work. But when any one of the four drives takes over, productivity is impinged. The longer this goes on, the more disastrous the results.

So, what are the four drives? And how do they translate into human behaviour?

  1. the Acquiring drive – our continual quest for more money, stuff, kudos
  2. the Bonding drive – our constant striving to be loved and liked
  3. the Learning drive – our unquenchable thirst for knowledge
  4. the Defending drive – our innate instinct to protect what is ours

Every job, according to Lawrence and Nohria, “must provide an opportunity to fulfill, to some reasonable degree, all four drives.” A job that fulfills only one or two drives – even if it does so in a big way – will never result in long term satisfaction for the employee or in maximum return on investment for the company. “This simple design rule is the fundamental and primary one that should guide [all companies]” say Lawrence and Nohria. It all sounds pretty straightforward in theory. But in practice? Not so much.

Some examples…

It may seem that all companies should prioritise the Acquiring drive (companies exist only to make money, do they not?) but to do so exclusively would be to commit business hara-kiri on a grand scale. Sure, it’s good to strive to achieve maximum sales and/or profits but “if this were the only drive in play, it would inevitably lead to an all-out struggle of each against all,” argues Lawrence and Nohria. A situation where everyone acted as a free agent in a winner-take-all contest and “opportunism and selfish political behaviour” were rampant. This is the reason that phrases like “every man for himself” and “dog eat dog” have negative connotations.

The Bonding drive propels employees to pursue friendships and to look out for the interests of others and of the company as a whole. Every company wants to promote this kind of community spirit but it is very easy to do so at the expense of other drives, most notably the Acquiring drive. If left to its own devices, a company which prioritises Bonding above all else will never succeed…Communism sounded all lovey-dovey in theory, but look how it played out in practice.

Surely it’s not possible to overstress the Learning drive in an organisation? After all, how can a thirst for knowledge ever be a bad thing? Turns out that emphasising a culture of learning above all else can actually be detrimental to an organisation. While it is vital that a job entails “enough variety of content to generate novel or problematic situations that trigger the itch of curiosity,” it is possible – say Lawrence and Nohria – for individuals and organisations to become “so obsessed with learning that they forget to eat or sleep or take vacations.”

The desire to Defend what is ours and to protect our own is fundamentally, inescapably human. In moderation it is an absolutely vital component of all successful individuals and organisations. But it is easy to see how damaging an obsession with defence can be when taken to its logical extremes. Like the toddler who won’t share his toys, ultra-defensiveness will always end in tears eventually.

The Acquiring drive and gamification

Successful gamification leverages all four drives, but gamification enjoys an extra-special relationship with the Acquiring drive…aka our fundamental human yearning for competition. Gamification programs, just like games, have winners and losers. And gamification employs all kinds of mechanics that fuel competition. Points, badges and leaderboards are the most obvious ones, but the deeper you dig, the more you will find.

While there are many positive aspects to this special relationship (a properly designed gamification program will work wonders for your team) there is a tendency among gamification designers and their clients to use the extremely powerful tools at their disposal to focus on material profits above all else. While we would never blame anyone for taking this approach (as this blog has shown, it’s human nature!) we’ve reached a point where we want to use our not so inconsiderable skills to achieve maximum good…not just for our clients, but also for the planet we live on. Which is why we propose a shift in thinking.

A NEW APPROACH FOR GAMIFICATION

In a world where two billion people survive on less that $2.50 per day:

  • What’s stopping companies from using gamification to motivate teams to do more for company-appointed charities?
  • Why can’t big employers use gamification to improve the lives of their own staff, many of whom might be struggling to make ends meet?
  • What’s to say gamification can’t be used to promote social causes that staff care about?

In the past it may have been OK to allocate the lion’s share of your HR budget to initiatives that would maximise profits. But as more and more companies become aware of their role in shaping the destiny of the planet we live on (you only need to note the inexorable rise of the B Corp to quantify this trend), the very definitions of “profit” and “bottom line” are changing under our feet.

We think this is a good thing. A very good thing. And we’re convinced gamification has a vital role to play in the development of a new breed of company that, according to the B Corp manifesto “balances purpose with profit…a global movement of people using business as a force for good.”

The shift doesn’t even have to be inspired by philanthropy (although we’d prefer if it was). When Lawrence and Nohria talk about the need to balance the Acquiring and Bonding drives, by “moderating [employees’] competitive energies with mutual caring,” they’re saying that to do so will boost profits in the conventional sense of the word. To these two business professors, the other rewards of such an approach are merely fringe benefits.

Not convinced? Here are some examples of firms that have done it.

1. Coca-Cola teams up with the UN

The UN Millennium Development Goals’ MY World initiative (2015) remains the largest ever public consultation exercise, reaching nearly 10 million citizens in 194 countries. It was able to achieve such incredible reach by partnering with over 700 organisations around the world. One such organisation was The Coca-Cola Company which used gamification mechanics (points, badges, leaderboards) to bring social issues to the attention (and action) of their customers.

Coca-Cola’s game counted ‘votes’ (points) per country and showed data comparisons, both within nations and between nations. The badges were the Millennium Development Goal icons, and the leaderboard was based on which of the six issues was globally prevalent at the time. The initiative is long gone, but here’s a link to the global survey. 

2. WWF makes saving electricity a game

Chances are you’ve participated in the WWF’s Earth Hour initiative (If you’re in South Africa you’ll have been inadvertently saving power for far more than an hour a day over the last few weeks!) but you probably haven’t realised that by switching all electrical lights and appliances off for an hour – and encouraging friends, family members, colleagues and companies to do the same – you’ve been taking part in a giant global game that pits companies, cities, countries and continents against one another in an effort to build awareness of our over-reliance on electricity, the dwindling fossil fuels which are used to produce it, and the role these play in climate change.

The bottom line

Competition is a key part of gamification and a core facet of human nature. (And there’s nothing wrong with this.) But, as Lawrence, Nohria, Coca-Cola and the WWF have shown, the Acquiring drive doesn’t have to be leveraged to advantage the few at the expense of the many. Au contraire – we’re hellbent on showing it can do the exact opposite. We’re on a mission to democratise competition? Are you in?

Is this gamification’s endgame? The future of gamification.

For as long as gamification has been around, experts have been predicting its demise. Instead of planning a funeral, we propose a reboot. Move over gamification. Hello Motivational Design.

Full face beards. Garish checked shirts. Steel-frame road bikes They were great in the 60s, 70s and 80s when we didn’t know any better, but they’ve had their moment. Haven’t they?

Try telling that to the trendsetting, hirsute hipster who’s weaving through rush-hour traffic on his Bianchi Centenario 1985, his bumblebee yellow and cornflower blue flannel shirt flapping in the breeze.

In the beginning

Around 2011, a new buzzword lit up first the internet and then the world of business. Gamification – which drew on the design elements of computer games to make hard stuff fun – was hailed as a silver bullet for just about any business challenge you could dream up. Like ranch dressing or a Leatherman Wave, there was seemingly no conundrum you couldn’t wiggle your way out of if you had gamification in your dugout.

From employee motivation and engagement; recruitment and retention; and learning and development all the way through to performance management; compliance training; and customer loyalty; it seemed there wasn’t a problem gamification couldn’t solve. Until 2014, that is, when – true to Gartner’s prediction that 80% of all gamified solutions would fail due to poor design – gamification hit a wall and many fly-by-night operators started to splutter.

Separating the wheat from the chaff

If you ask us, the crash was a good thing. A very good thing. Because, in the boom years, some folks missed the point. Like a shoddy baker disguising a flopped cake with rainbow sprinkles, they plastered game-like features (points, badges, leaderboards otherwise known as PBLs) over the same old, tired strategies that people had long since grown bored of. This worked for a while, but to paraphrase almost every politician ever, You can put lipstick on a hog and call it Monique, but at the end of the day it’s still a hog.

Gamification is design. And design is a specialised skill. To be clear – we don’t mean design in the ‘make it look pretty’ sense. We mean it in the fundamental, from-the-ground-up, creative problem-solving sense. Gamification isn’t a quick-fix, after-the-fact intervention. It’s a way of thinking that needs to be hard-wired into a company’s DNA. For every firm that gets this right there are four or five who don’t.

Or at least there were. Slowly, surely the pretenders are falling by the wayside.

Not all fun and games

We totally understand if you’ve been let down by gamification in the past. But we are convinced that your disappointment stems from the connotations the word ‘gamification’ has taken on and the limitations of current gamification practice. There are no two ways about it: a lot of people have been getting a lot wrong for way too long. After all, who wouldn’t be fed up after a decade of points, badges and leaderboards?

Or, as Richard N Landers, a Professor of Organisational Psychology at the University of Minnesota puts it, “Although management gamification has immense potential to broadly benefit both management and employees, its impact to date has been lackluster and its value unclear.” Landers puts this down to what he calls rhetorical gamification – “a process which involves the decoration of existing organisational processes with game elements” without paying any attention to how said elements influence behaviour.

For gamification to work, Landers says, it needs to target “specific psychological characteristics of employees or customers.” In theoretical terms, he continues “legitimate gamification…can be defined as a family of work and product design techniques inspired by game design,” Rhetorical gamification, on the other hand, is at best amateurish and at worst “a swindle, an attempt to make something appear ‘game-like’; purely to sell more gamification.”

Here are a couple of examples of gamification gone wrong:

  • In 2013, in a bid to drive recruitment, the Marriot Hotel Group created a game, modeled on Farmville, where players had to complete all the tasks associated with running a hotel kitchen. Riveting stuff like ordering potatoes, training waitstaff on napkin-folding techniques, and ensuring hygiene standards were met. The game was a massive, costly flop because it forgot to take into account the fact that very few sane human beings would dedicate precious me-time to playing a game which closely mimicked what is, for many, one of the most tedious aspects of modern life – running a household. If Marriot had based the game on the life of a bartender or a croupier, the campaign would surely have been far more successful.
  • Zappos is a wonderful, forward thinking brand with a fantastic loyalty program and motivated, happy employees. But even the good guys get things wrong sometimes. When Zappos started rewarding customers with badges in return for placing reviews, people got excited…Until they realised that the badges had no value. Zero. Zilch. Nada. If the badges had entitled people to a discount or a free gift, the outcome would have been very different. While Zappos continues to do well, those badges are long gone.

Houston, we have a problem

In the words of Landers (yep, him again), “Only by carefully distinguishing legitimate and rhetorical gamification, can legitimate gamification’s potential be fully realized.”

If this article persuades you of one thing only, let it be this. The core tenets of gamification remain as potent and irresistible as ever – it’s the word itself which has run out of steam. We’re as committed to helping businesses overcome obstacles by tapping into the core drives which underpin every human being’s psyche as we were when we started out. But we also know that you can’t flog a dead horse. (Or a hog in mascara, for that matter).

Which is why we’ve taken it upon ourselves to implement a reboot. To write the sequel. To go back to the drawing board. To create Gamification 2.0. Except we’re not calling it that. We’re giving it a new name that shakes off some of the frivolity that’s associated with games and hones in on those core human drives that none of us can ignore. We’re calling it…

…MOTIVATIONAL DESIGN.

Motivational Design hasn’t made it into the dictionary yet. But when the chaps in Oxford get wind of it, here’s the definition we’re hoping they’ll use: Design that motivates people towards specific, measurable behaviour changes.

Motivational Design is underpinned by the very legitimate science of motivation. Where sub-standard gamification reduces engagement to nothing more than PBLs – and poorly designed PBLs at that – Motivational Design focuses on the core human drives that are guaranteed to motivate people to earn points and badges and thus top leaderboards. Think of it as the difference between flapping your arms and expecting to fly (à la Icarus) and using the principles of aerodynamics to design a winged aircraft (à la the Wright brothers).

Here are a couple of enduring examples from Gamification 1.0 that espouse the best of Motivational Design:

  • When Nike launched the Nike+ running app back in 2010, they achieved the seemingly impossible: they created a global community of runners (the loneliest, most unstructured sport of all) who were driven by their desire to outperform themselves and their peers. By channelling a core human drive Nike was able to push existing runners to up their games, inspire millions to take up the sport and gather a plethora of extremely valuable user data.
  • The US Army’s online game America’s Army: Proving Grounds is one of the oldest examples of gamification but it remains one of the biggest success stories. An impressive, intoxicating first-person shooter, it sets itself apart from commercial competitors like Call of Duty by focusing on tactical teamwork rather than individual shooting heroics. It’s also totally free to play, as long as you provide your personal details. The game has not only driven recruitment, it has also burnished the US Army’s reputation. Fun, engaging and addictive, America’s Army is everything the Marriot hotel manager game was not.
  • Deloitte Consulting used game mechanics and core human drives to increase the number of senior employees who completed its online training courses by 37%. While they did so using PBLs they changed things up by doing clever things like resetting leaderboards every seven days and awarding surprise badges when, for example, all members of the same team unwittingly watched the same video. They realised that no one wants to be taken for a fool, and unpredictability is a key motivator.

Hopefully these examples show that with a genuine, bottom-up approach to human centred design, real and lasting engagement is a sure thing. If you’ve been bitten by the Emperor-with-no-clothes that is rhetorical gamification, why not come on over to our side and give Motivational Design a whirl? You won’t regret it…

Make better leaders and have fun doing it. A guide to successful leadership.

Gone are the days of dictators and autocrats in the workplace. These days, successful leadership is about working together and allowing all voices to be heard. Such skills are remarkably difficult to teach, but surprisingly easy to learn by doing. Which is where gamification comes in…

A universal problem

Businesses cannot thrive without effective leaders at every level and in every department. Poor leadership dents financial performance, results in lower employee engagement and productivity and – ultimately – leads to staff turnover. Are you scared yet?

Click here to read the 2021 Global Human Capital Trends: Special report where Deloitte show how the worker-employer relationship has been disrupted. Another example of how the new generation of leaders face a new set of of challenges. And as we know, new challenges require new thinking.

An unexpected solution

Traditional teaching methods – lectures, seminars and video terminals – simply don’t work with folks who’re fretting about Instagram likes and Candy Crush leader boards. The answer, of course, has been staring us in the face all along. Instead of moaning about employees’ obsession with Farmville and Facebook, forward-thinking companies the world over are taking their cues from social media and games when creating leadership development programs. With stellar results…

Incorporating game-like aspects (challenges, rewards, leader boards, recognition, interaction) into leadership development programs doesn’t just make them more appealing to employees, it also renders them far more effective teaching tools. All the research shows that adults learn best via experiences.

More than just a pretty face

Don’t be fooled by gamification’s frivolous reputation, either. Early adopters the world over (lightweights like the US Army) are convinced that gamification is more than capable of meeting the serious challenges of leadership development. Gamification works, posits Rashmi Sasidharan, because it introduces a believable context; involves practice and collaboration and is eminently memorable. “Combining the use of gaming and simulation technologies with psychology-based leadership development offers exciting opportunities for tomorrow’s leaders,” concludes a report published by Deloitte University Press.

Different strokes for different folks

Recent research published in the Harvard Business Review identified six distinctive leadership styles from which leaders should pick and choose, namely:

  1. Coercive: “Do what I tell you!”
  2. Pace-setting: “Do as I do, now!”
  3. Coaching: “Try this.”
  4. Democratic: “What do you think?”
  5. Affiliative: “People come first.”
  6. Authoritative (not to be confused with authoritarian): “Come with me.”

Of the six styles, the first two are generally seen as doing more harm than good and should be used sparingly (in a crisis, perhaps) if at all. The most effective leaders use a combination of styles 3 thru 6.

A match made in (gamification) heaven

This all dovetails superbly with gamification and its focus on six distinct player types. By catering for an array of player types, gamification is the ideal crucible in which to forge new and diverse leadership traits.

For example, gamification tasks designed to appeal to Philanthropist player types are ideally suited to developing Democratic leadership traits. Similarly, aspects designed to float Socialisers’ boats will work wonders in nurturing the Coaching leadership style.

The final word

There’s a reason pilots learn to fly on simulators not in real planes. Gamification is a mighty effective tool for developing self-awareness, honing alternative leadership styles and learning how to identify which style is most suited to each situation. The best part? You won’t be looking for debris on the ocean floor if at all goes Pete Tong!

 

Killer gamification takes no prisoners

If you’re lucky enough to employ a highly-motivated pack of aggressive sales hounds, you may feel that gamification has nothing to offer your business. In truth, you couldn’t be more wrong. Read on to find out how gamification can push an already effective team to multiply its achievements exponentially.

What is sales gamification?

You may not realise it, but you’re probably already using gamification in some shape or form. If you’ve ever run a sales competition or dangled a motivational carrot, such as a prize or a bonus, then you’re engaging in gamification at its simplest. Gamification mimics the mechanics, dynamics and aesthetics of computer games to encourage behavioural shifts and drive performance.

What’s in the toolbox?

Most gamification projects start with contests and leaderboards, but it’s very important that these don’t create a ‘win at all costs’ scenario. To avoid this kind of dynamic, it’s probably better to incorporate an element of collaboration into the contest, and also to only pit people against competitors whom they can realistically outperform (people from the same department/region/tier).

Points and badges are another vital weapon in the armoury of anyone planning on effecting behavioural change. Rather than acknowledging success in itself, points should reward habits that breed success. What’s more, to discourage the kind of gung-ho behaviour favoured by some sales hounds, employees should be able to both gain and lose points. Employees should have to really sweat to earn badges (‘scarcity’ is a core human driver) and these badges should acknowledge real progress (sharing information on 10 prospective clients on the company CRM, for example).

Campaigns and challenges can be used to encourage employees to achieve specific goals, like completing a training course or improving their conversion rate. Challenges should be achievable (but never easy) and clearly defined. Plus, employees should always know where they stand in relation to their colleagues.

Getting eagles to flock

Contests, badges and challenges will hold intrinsic appeal for a sales team that is already aggressive and results-orientated, but crafting a culture of sharing and collaboration requires a more subtle approach. This where social feeds come into their own.

When designing a gamification product, it is essential that you create a space for social communication that is modelled on Facebook, Twitter and the gang. What may, on the face of it, seem like banal banter is actually solid skills development gold. To paraphrase www.gameffective.com, social communication is essential for skills development because it:

  • Opens an informal channel of discussion between agents and managers
  • Fosters collaboration on team challenges (be they real or gamified)
  • Enables casual coaching and collaboration between geographically dispersed teams who are not in direct competition with one another
  • Encourages agents to congratulate each other and give feedback. Feedback from peers has been shown to carry much more weight than feedback from managers.

The long and the short

We’re not for a minute knocking the performance of your toughest sales guy. But we are saying that gamification will encourage him to share his skills with others, and maybe even learn a few new tricks himself. In the process making your entire sales team more ruthlessly effective than ever before.

 

Two parts gamification, one part content

We’re experts at using cutting-edge gamification strategies to engage and motivate your employees. Once we’ve got their attention, however, it’s up to you to make sure there’s plenty of meat in the sandwich …

Gamification is a booster for user engagement, organisational productivity, motivation and e-learning. Whether you’re seeking to increase sales, stimulate learning or supercharge engagement, we can help you – as long as there’s enough content to keep high-performing players coming back for more. A strong content plan (and plenty of actual content) is at the heart of every successful gamification solution.

This content takes two main forms. One of which can only be provided by you, the business owner.

1. Learning content

Gamification can be used to stimulate learning in absolutely any context – from mining and microbiology to call centres and computer science – and at any level of your business. But there is one important caveat…

If you’re using gamification to motivate and engage employees to develop professionally, it goes without saying that you will need to provide the majority of the content. Whether the learning’s focussed on products, processes or services, you know your business far better than we ever could. Sure, we can use our expertise to tailor the content to make it more game friendly, but you’ll need to assign a person / team to feed us all this nitty gritty info.

2. Motivational content

What’s more, all gamification strategies also require motivational content. This may be further information about the system, incentives to increase sales or triggers to keep people in the system. Generally, this is also supplied by the client (you know your business best, remember), but we are able to help out as part of a comprehensive communication strategy.

A nice problem to have

You will be amazed at how swiftly high performing players in the system will glide through content (both learning and motivational). This is a nice problem to have – but if your content cookie jar is not adequately stocked, engagement will almost certainly suffer.

Regardless of your precise gamification needs you will require a strong content plan in place from the outset, and you’ll also have to adapt and manage it as the solution unfolds. For instance, we have seen that whenever content is switched off (when the person in charge is ill, perhaps) engagement drops dramatically – make sure this doesn’t happen to you, by having a backup plan in place.

A two-way street

It goes without saying that participants engage more when there is more content. If engagement is your goal (which it certainly should be) you need to complete the loop by providing content. Engagement – like any effective relationship – is all about give and take.

 

It’s all in the brain: Gamification neurochemistry 101

We now know that the brain is triggered and motivated like clockwork. Understanding a (teeny) bit about the main neurotransmitters is key to getting gamification right.

Serotonin. Oxytocin. Dopamine. It’s easy to glaze over when folks start throwing around four-syllable words you can’t even spell – let alone pronounce or understand. Bear with us, we’ll keep it simple…

Oxytocin outlined

Commonly known as the love drug, oxytocin is produced during sex, childbirth and breastfeeding. (If you’re not in the market for any of these right now, a simple hug can also do the trick). Oxytocin’s social functions – it impacts bonding behaviour, the creation of group memories and social recognition – make it solid gamification gold.

Oxytocin production is stimulated by a cracking storyline (take it away Wilbur Smith) and it is at the heart of why people are so addicted to social media. It’s also impacted by selfless giving so be sure to create a gamification system that ticks all of these boxes.

Dopamine demystified

In the olden days, circa 2009, we thought that dopamine was the brain’s pleasure drug, end of story. Turns out there’s a bit more to it all. The latest research suggests that dopamine is released in anticipation of a reward, making it more about motivation than it is about pleasure.

Novelty, writes leading neuroscientist Andre Kuszewski, “triggers dopamine, which not only kicks motivation into high gear, but also stimulates the creation of new neurons and prepares your brain for learning. All you need to do is to feed the hunger.”

In practical terms this means designing gamification systems that encourage exploration and expose users to new situations.

Endorphins explained

When you’re exposed to pain or stress your body produces endorphins in an attempt to quell the unpleasurable sensation. (Give that man a Bell’s). Endorphins are the reason (some) people discover a second wind after passing the halfway mark of the Comrades (us mortals will have to take your word for it) and they also go some way towards explaining why munching a red-hot habanero can be a strangely satisfying ordeal – especially when watching others suffer through the Comrades.

For gamification designers this means including tasks which are truly difficult to complete. Although such tasks may at first frustrate users, the endorphin hit which accompanies overcoming the challenge will make it all worthwhile.

Serotonin scrutinized

In the same way that your car needs regular top-ups of oil, your levels of happiness are directly linked the amount of serotonin your body produces. Serotonin reduces depression, regulates anxiety and even heals wounds and bones (I’ll have what she’s having). Serotonin is triggered whenever you feel useful, valued or important. A simple “thank you” can often do the trick – very good news for gamification.

As long as your system gives brownie points for achievements, you’re good to go, even if the rewards are only virtual pink bunnies. It’s also important to allow people to thank and/or complement one another. You scratch my back I scratch yours and all that jazz…

The final word

Successful gamification systems account for all four of these neurotransmitters, by incorporating novelty, recognition, challenges and social aspects into their design. Kinda like a four seasons pizza.