Brains on the Beach - Gamified Co-Creation

“What would happen if we got a dozen or more experienced, talented and turned on OD Professionals together for a weekend to create all new approaches for a real client’s real business issue?”

 

The Answer = Brains on the Beach

In this episode learn more about Brains on the Beach from one of the original founders, James Bishop. Hear about their unique vision, how it works, what gamification adds to the process, and how you can become a Brains on the Beach Consultant!

Brains on the Beach brings together the best coaches, trainers, facilitators, business experts to develop workplace solutions for corporate and NGO clients.

To encourage co-creation between individuals, the experience is gamified. The GamesMaster finds the client for the Brains to focus their energy on a challenge posed to them and sets the rules of engagement.

Two Rules of Failure

Things are changing faster and faster every day, and there’s no slowing in sight. The bottom line for any company is… you can either lead the change or be collateral damage as the change rolls over you.

An individual or company capable of responding effectively to rapidly changing market conditions will operate in an environment where mistakes and even failures happen. You can’t expect yourself or other people to be great without making mistakes. In fact, failure should be expected.

Have you heard it said, “If you’re not failing… you’re not trying hard enough!”

The key to success in the face of change is to identify failure as quickly as possible. Fast failure is acceptable; slow failure is not. Failing quickly means finding a successful alternative quickly, before the failure causes too much damage. In most cases you can find another approach, another process, another solution that will work.

This requires two standard rules of practice.

DNF is NOT an Option

Although the race was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life, I was determined that I was going to finish. I had trained, I was ready … or so I thought. At about the 3.5 mile point I started having doubts about whether I was going to be able to make it or not. In running when you drop out of a race it is called a DNF or “did not finish.”

I started talking to myself pretty sharply at this point. Asking myself, “Do you really want a DNF? What does that say about you?” I then had to remind myself that quitting was not an option either in this race or in life. You have to finish and finish strong!

Reframing our language allows us to fill our heads with the positive rather than the negative. Research suggests that 83% of the conversations we have with ourselves are negative. And these negative conversations play over and over.
The benefits are enormous when we stop replaying, and instead we reframe our inner-communication to capture the positive perspective.

Poet John Milton wrote,

"The mind is its own place and in itself, can make a Heaven of Hell, or a Hell of Heaven."

Is your mind making a heaven or a hell, for you?

Here are a couple of examples of how you can turn your negative words (and the accompanying self-defeating thoughts) into positive communication (and self-empowering actions):

• Instead of saying, "That's just the way I am," say, "I have decided to try a different approach." This keeps you in control of your future.
• Instead of saying you have a "problem," call it an "opportunity." This allows for a self-empowering improvement of the situation.
• Instead of saying you “have” to do something, say I “choose” to do this. This puts you in control – of your choices. No one is forcing you to do it.

Always reframe your language so that you have control over what you do and who you are.

How does this action-step impact you? Make the decision now to design and live the life you dream of. Do this for thirty days. Every time a negative thought tries to enter your head, banish it. Reframe it and replace it with a positive thought. After thirty days, reframing will become your new habit. Let me know how this goes for you. I am sure it will go well and that this new habit will change your life for the better.

And remember… DNF is not an option!

More articles on thinking differently to achieve uncommon results:

• The Five Most Common Self-Limiting Beliefs
• Perception of Reality is Everything
• Ask the Wrong Question... Get the Wrong Answer

About the Author: Monica Cornetti
Founder and CEO, Sententia www.SententiaGames.com www.monicacornetti.com

A professional speaker and gamification designer, Monica Cornetti is rated as the #1 Gamification Guru in the World by UK-Based Leaderboarded. She is the author of the book Totally Awesome Training Activity Guide: Put Gamification to Work for You, writes The Gamification Report blog, and hosts the weekly Gamification Talk Radio program.

What Can I Fail At This Week?

Typically when faced with an uncertainty, we don’t carefully evaluate the information or look for facts and statistics. Instead, in making decisions we use biases and shortcuts that are hardwired into our thinking process. These shortcuts can be dangerous because they create blind spots … so we fail to recognize them as we fall into a trap of faulty thinking.

Daniel Kahneman in his book, Thinking, Fast and Slow gives a great example, a simple arithmetic question: A bat and ball cost a dollar and ten cents. The bat costs a dollar more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?

If you are like most people you respond quickly and confidently, and tell me that the ball costs ten cents.

Well that answer is both obvious and wrong.

Baggage on the Trip of Life

Have you ever had to drag a load of luggage through an airport? As you’re running to catch your flight you think to yourself, “Why did I pack so much junk?” I just got back from a three week speaking and gamification design tour that included places with diverse climates -- Las Vegas, Boston, Johannesburg, and Cape Cod, and each trip to the airport had me calculating if maybe I had packed far too much and was carrying too much weight with me.

Yet, we may walk around every day carrying a couple suitcases full of shame, fear, insecurities, and a distorted view of who we really are. It may be words or thought patterns that have stayed with you your whole life. This kind of baggage weighs you down as you drag it around, day after day.

Its torture and you end up getting nowhere fast.

Take a play from my What Were You Thinking Playbook that I do in many of my workshops called The Baggage Sweep. This tool will help you to unpack and start travelling a little lighter.

Begin Your Change Imaginations...

While prepping content recently for a strategic planning retreat with a client, I stumbled upon the story that you’ll read below.

As tears filled my eyes and threatened to overflow, I was reminded of how our thought process and frame of reference determine what we believe to be true… whether it is true or not.

Many years ago, when I worked as a volunteer at a hospital, I got to know a little girl named Liz who was suffering from a rare and serious disease. Her only chance of recovery appeared to be a blood transfusion from her 5-year-old brother, who had miraculously survived the same disease and had developed the antibodies needed to combat the illness.

The doctor explained the situation to her older brother, and asked the little boy if he would be willing to give his blood to his sister. I saw him hesitate for only a moment before taking a deep breath and saying, “Yes… I’ll do it. If it will save her.”

There’s Gotta Be a Better Way…

"There’s gotta be a better way!"

How often have you used that phrase at work ... or when doing some kind of household chore?

There's gotta be a better way is the phrase at the heart of most innovation. Innovation creates value for you as a customer through solutions that meet a new need or an old need in new ways.

Recently while on the road for a speaking tour, I stayed with my mom and dad for a few days between gigs. The night before I was to leave, I decided to launder a few items and so asked my mom if she had anything to add to my small loads. She said to me, “Oh, you can just throw all your clothes in together.” I looked at her as if she had lost her senses.

We All Have a Story to Tell... What's Yours?

Stories help us to organize and remember information and tie content together. Our brains are hard-wired to think and express in terms of a beginning, middle and end. It's how we understand the world.

If you, like many adults believe you lack creativity to develop an engaging storyline, try this. The next time you’re in a public setting with a friend or colleague, spend a few minutes watching the people around you. Now with your companion create a “back story” about the couple sitting at the table next to you, or the business man juggling his briefcase, coffee, and cell phone. Before long you’ll be laughing and creating fun, intriguing, and sometimes outrageous stories about complete strangers – who surprisingly, you also now feel somehow connected to.

When a story reaches our hearts, it takes hold of us, and we want to hear more. Our minds remember stories, especially stories with emotions attached, much better than they remember lists, numbers, or concepts.