Why would a serious business what to make work fun?

To answer that question you need only to look to the ‘Online gaming industry’ for the answers.

Modern online games like “World of Warcraft” are simply a fact of modern life. Estimates for World of Warcraft show gamers spend spend a collective 30 million hours a day playing this one game online!

Why would so many people put in hours and hours of ‘work’ for no monetary gain just to play an online game?

To find out the answers ‘online gaming companies’ have spent millions of dollars analysing the ‘human psyche’ in order to duplicate the same results to build better and better games that are more addictive. Obviously the more addictive the game, the more players playing and therefore more money. Their findings are that the reasons people enjoy online games are very similar to the reasons people spend hours getting lessons on golf . In order for a game to be compelling studies show that there are common aspects found in all ’addictive’ games (real and online):

1. A Goal - preferably the goal should be very specific and challenging so that the chance of success is not guaranteed and the consequence of failure not great. This inspires people to become engaged, optimistic and take chances.
2. Rules - that set out exactly how you can achieve the goal and preferably those rules should in fact add to the difficulty of the game (e.g. golf you can’t pick up the ball you must hit it with a stick).
3. Feedback - telling the player exactly how far away from achieving their goal.
4. Voluntary participation - all players accept the goals, rules and feed back and play accordingly.

Knowing how games become addictive allows a Business Manager to make work addictive also:

1. Goal if you clearly state what the goal is and invite everyone to join in and help achieve the goal then work immediately becomes engaging. The bigger the group involved the better the chance of getting everyone involved as most people what to be a part of something large e.g. landing a man on the moon is more inspiring than sending the office help to buy sandwiches.

2. The Rules need to clearly show who is in charge of each section and define due dates and completion criteria for each part of any new project.

3. Feedback each meeting should provide feedback to as many of the group as possible. Limiting feedback to just section chiefs limits the degree of involvement that everyone on the staff feels they have in the project. Too often staff feel they are missing this direct feed back on the progress towards the final goal. Instead the feeling is they are just a step on the ladder and their input is either not required or is of little consequence. For example a COE may see profits rise as a result of his or her decisions but they are unlikely to see everything that went into making those decisions work.

4. Voluntary Participation this is a tricky one. In a game you are playing the game because you want to not because you have to to earn money or because someone told you to play. Generation ‘Y’ are particularly responsive to jobs that ‘entertain’ rather than just a mundane 9-5 existence.

A great game of allows every person to develop their own specific way of playing. High risk high reward strategies or conservative lower risk lower reward strategies. In addition you can play different strategies on different days to allow for days when you are ‘on top of your game’ and days when you are not so ‘on top.

So let’s apply ‘Game psychology’ to creating a system for something as mundane debt collection (not so mundane to the business owner):

1. Goal ‘Debt Collection’ start with the ‘Busy work’ - get as many people in as many departments to write down how they would collect the money. Sales people will tend to want a softer approach than the accounts people as a general rule.
2. Rules: the Physical work actually involves getting each member to add as many parts to the project (e.g. when or even if to send out accounts – too many small businesses give accounts to companies who order less than $100 in product a month, when to send statements etc). The Mental work of deciding as a group which are the best ideas, how to marry them together, what order the ideas should follow, what systems to put in place and how to implement them.
3. Feedback: this is the Creative work - have each member of the team take away the whole list of ideas and then come back with a ‘slimmed down’ version that only contains the very best bits. They also need to run best and worst case scenario for their final plan showing how it caters for both.
4. Voluntary participation: this is the Emotional work which involves everyone living with the outcomes (good and bad). To keep this ‘global’ schedule meeting to go over and discuss how the implementation of the new system went. If necessary go back to step 2 and re-work the answers from the first attempt. Remember failing is not a bad thing so long as the repercussions are not ‘catestrophic’ (e.g. get this wrong and you are all fired won’t lead people to take reasonable chances).

In short a game allows people to experience many of the things they no longer experience in a their ‘real life’ job.

Although it sounds counter intuitive, to get the best from your employees:

• let them enjoy part of being a group
• work for a common goal
• have their ideas heard
• allow them to fail
• ultimately involve them in the results in the same way they would a be involved in any sort of game.