Shall we play a game?
How about Global Thermonuclear War? Remember the movie WarGames? It featured a very young Matthew Broderick who inadvertently hacks into a military supercomputer to try and play some games. He accidentally triggers a military simulation that causes all sort of confusion at NORAD on what is real and what is fake (simulated). One of my favorite movies, not just because Broderick’s character’s last name was Lightman, but it was one of the first movies I remember featuring a hacker, computer based learning, and the disruption associated with automation especially with maintaining command of our missile silos. There are some interesting parallels for what is now occurring within corporations. The term “gamification” is being thrown around a lot. It’s one of those misused buzzwords used to describe applying gaming principles to business processes.
PwC was kind enough to listen to my ranting on this subject and even publish some of my thoughts in the their latest tech forecast. I admit I came off sounding like a bit of a curmudgeon, after all who doesn’t love playing games, but if we rush into this shiny new space without addressing legacy issues nothing will be achieved with any lasting impact. There is also a mind shift that needs to be overcome. Some folks believe work is work, its not supposed to be fun. You might agree or not, but I think we should all acknowledge that work should be meaningful and fulfilling.
My basic complaint was that we inundate corporations with new technologies and hyped up buzzwords and gloss over the central issue, which is that today’s employees are simple disengaged. Gallop recently performed a study where they found that 2/3 of workers are disengaged at work. They found this represents a cumulative $300B in lost productivity. Whether you agree with their methodology or not, this is still a tough nut to crack. After all, in most organizations, there is a heavy build up of processes on top of processes with little understanding of why. A game might help (or not), but in under to sustain engagement and turn around the notion of work as a chore that you have to do to get a paycheck, we might need to rethink how work gets conducted, how employee are incentivized, and how embedded processes can be streamlined or even ripped out of the equation.
Jane McGonigal and the folks at the Institute for the Future have done some interesting research on the positive psychological factors/motivators around game play including joy, contentment, relief, and excitement. I can imagine these are ideals that managers would love in describing their employee’s response to their work environment. Also, Self Determination Theory (SDT), which researchers have identified as a key component of game play, helps instill key psychological needs –autonomy, competence and relatedness. If games can help provide these key qualities and work is non-fulfilling than why not simply “gamify” work. Well as I mentioned before it’s not a one to one mapping.
Like the confusion from war games, gaming without careful thought through will lead to mis-understanding within organizations. Why are we doing this? Is it part of my responsibilities? How do we measure outcomes? I think there are areas of work and a particular audience that might lend well to a game. On boarding for one. When you bring on new employees and there is natural collegiality between groups, you might be able to develop a game around finding resources especially within a large organization. In fact, this is what the smart folks at SCVNGR have done. However, not addressing legacy issues to create a fertile area for game play and not understanding adoption patterns within organizations will lead to retracting not advancing. Congratulations, you are now the mayor of TPS cover sheets….