3 Fundamental Questions that Earn L&D Professionals a Seat at the Table

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It’s probably no surprise to you, but investing in employees pays off.

Research shows the more a company invests toward developing employees, the higher its stock value goes the following year (Bassi). Learning opportunities result in higher levels of employee promotion, retention, satisfaction, skills and knowledge, and this translates to better organizational performance.

Yet how often as a learning professional, are you excluded from a seat at the table with senior leaders to identify, beyond smiley sheets, ROI or ROE that are linked to the organization’s key strategic and business objectives?

The Hungrier Games: How Gamification Builds Drive and Determination in Employees

A Guest Blog by Taylor Burke*

Employee engagement is dismally low. Just 33 percent of U.S. employees report being engaged at work, and that number hasn’t changed much since Gallup began measuring for it in 2000.

Unrest of that level can only lead to one thing — revolt. And that’s exactly what’s occurring. More than a third of people now work for themselves and that number is expected to near 50 percent by 2020. Seventy-six percent of workers are actively looking for or open to new jobs.  

Business leaders, looking to place blame somewhere other than on themselves, might argue that low engagement equals low motivation — an entitled up-and-coming, addicted-to-smartphones, everyone-gets-a-trophy millennial generation. But they’d be wrong.

Gamification Challenge: Dollarize It! - ROI vs. ROE

It’s probably no surprise to you, but investing in employees pays off.

Learning opportunities result in higher levels of employee promotion, retention, satisfaction, skills and knowledge, and this translates to better organizational performance. In fact, research shows the more a company invests toward developing employees, the higher its stock value goes the following year.

Yet demonstrating a real, bottom-line, Return on Investment (ROI) remains a continued challenge for those of us in Learning and Development fields.

The Gamification of Learning Part 3: Rules, Rewards, and Results

This week on Gamification Talk Radio, we finish exploring the seven continents on our journey, and review Rules, Rewards, and Results.

Level 5:  Siberian Express – Why would they want to play?

As you create your gamification experience, think of creative features that will appeal to a variety of intrinsic and/or extrinsic motivators of your players. Define what core drivers of motivation will be most dominant in each phase of the experience. For example, in your onboarding phase you can get your players in quickly with some simple extrinsic motivators. The longer your players are in your game, you’ll want to design for different motivators such as: 

The Gamification of Learning Part 1: Objectives and Players

Using the metaphor of a World Explorer, Monica takes you inside her hands-on, gamified playshop to explore the beauty, awe, marvels, and dangers of the seven levels of successful gamification. You'll learn how to plan for your journey and pack wisely to make every item count.

This week to get started we explore two of the seven continents on our journey, and begin with business objectives and who is playing our game (our learners).

Do You Need a Gamification Audit?

 Fundamentally, gamification is a technique to influence motivation and engage people to solve problems, perform certain actions, and have fun while on the way to building positive energy in the workplace. When implemented properly, it also enables transformation by encouraging voluntary changes in behavior, mindset or attitude in line with the desired outcomes.

 

A Sententia process audit analyzes your proposed or active gamification process against the agreed upon requirements. It involves verification by evaluation of the operation or methods against predetermined strategies or standards. It measures conformance to these standards and the effectiveness of the strategies.

 

Gamification is a complex process that involves multiple stages. It is necessary to understand the objectives of the organization, evaluate challenges in achieving the objectives, and to be familiar with the motivations of employees (your players) to reach the objectives.

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.

Using Gamification to Transform Your Team

What do you do if your favorite things in the world are playing board games, solving puzzles, working with teams, and traveling around the world? That’s the question Dr. Clue founder and San Francisco Bay Area native, Dave Blum, asked himself back in 1995. Coming from a varied career in ESL, tourism and non profits, Dave got to thinking: “Surely there’s something I can create that incorporates all my interests and hobbies?”

And so Dr. Clue Treasure Hunts was born. (www.drclue.com)

According to a recent Gallup poll, active employee disengagement is costing U.S. businesses an estimated $500 billion annually.

Luckily it does NOT have to be that way.  

Fight Through the FUNK

It makes things a whole lot easier when you realize that everybody has FUNK.

When you want to try something new, to get out of those patterned routines that you follow – there are a few pitfalls to avoid making it easier to fight through the FUNK.

The first is trying to solve today’s problems yesterday’s solutions. Yesterday’s solutions work until they don’t work anymore. When you want something new… yesterday’s solutions aren’t going to work for you.

What FUNK is in your TRUNK??

You go through your life following the patterns you’ve grown comfortable with. You do things because that’s the way they’re done. Your routine seems so natural that it doesn’t even occur to you that you’re following patterns at all.

You overlook opportunities or fail to see warning signs because you’ve kept your eyes not on the target, but on the routine… it happens to all of us.

Yet, have you found that change is inevitable… and growth is optional?

You may wonder why does this happen all the time why do I have so much resistance to change?

Well it’s because of the FUNK.

Gamification... The Adventure Continues

We arrived back in Austin late Saturday night, and as the wheels touched down, we looked at each other and said, "That was a GREAT trip!" 10 days in Valencia and Barcelona, Spain as part of my participation in the 2015  Gamification World Congress. The event itself was one of the most organized and best run events that I have ever been a part of as both as a speaker or an attendee. And the people were amazingly warm, gracious, generous, and FUN!

I was honored to deliver a workshop on Day 1 of the Congress on Gamification in the field of Talent Development. I also attended two workshops, one given by my colleague Yu-Kai Chou

Most of the Things You Worry About NEVER Happen!

My previous post, The Gap Between Where You Are and Where You Want to Be, explored the common risks we must all take to get to the next level, and also the fear and self-limiting beliefs that trap you and keep you from moving there.

In the book Habits Die Hard, authors Anderson and Murphy reference a practice from Buddhist teacher, James Barasz, that you can use to dispel fear and limiting beliefs, even when you think you can’t. It’s called RAIN: Recognize, Accept, Investigate, Nonidentify.

The Gap Between Where You Are and Where You Want to Be

There's that gap between where you are and where you want to be. It’s that risk you haven't taken. We all have to take risks to get to the next level, but then fear and self-limiting beliefs act like a rubber band pulling you back. You try to reach that next level but the elasticity of that rubber band pulls you right back to your comfort zone. Inside the comfort zone there is no room for courage, boldness or enthusiasm.

Fear is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It keeps you from making intelligent risks that help you achieve your desires and instead - it follows a patterned cycle to fulfill that which you feared.

Let me show you what I mean... let's walk through the fear cycle together.

Gamification and Teams

We can take the game mechanics that game designers had been using for years to drive behaviors, such as competition, real-time feedback, and goal-setting, and apply them to talent development and talent management. These game mechanics work outside of gaming because they are based on satisfying fundamental human needs and desires.

Gaming has created an entirely different learning style, one that:

• aggressively ignores any hint of formal instruction
• includes lots of learning from peers but virtually none from authority figures
• leans heavily on trial and error (after all, failure doesn’t really cost you anything, you just push “play again”)
• is consumed in very small bits exactly when the learner wants, which is usually just before the skill is needed

Gamification invites people to participate and engage by integrating game mechanics and game dynamics into non-game contexts. My favorite space to use gamification is in the area of Talent Development to strengthen and advance your team.

By adding game mechanics to training, Gamification not only increases interest, it makes training FUN!

The goal is to increase learning and engagement through key concepts found in game design and behavioral psychology.

More Gamification Design Articles:

Gamification... It's More Than Hot Fudge

Gamification Design: Start with the Story

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

A gamification speaker and designer, Monica Cornetti is rated as a #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.

Finding Fun in the Things We Have to Do

Many people are intensely competitive in games, trying to outpace and outsmart their way to the top. Face it, we have been playing games since the days of the cavemen, and it is human nature to compare ourselves to others to see how we measure up. 

Add technology to the mix, and today gaming has become a hugely popular and tremendously profitable industry, to the order of over $100 billion dollars globally this year. 

The reality is: 

• People enjoy playing games
• Popular games inspire extreme loyalty
• People are motivated by gaming reward and achievement systems
• Therefore, if non-games are made more game-like, we’ll be more likely to ‘play’ them 

The success of social networks and social gaming has demonstrated how behavioral psychology plays a factor in a successful user experience. Games have proven that people crave personal progress in building social connections and completing goals, especially in light of the fact that millions of people engage with these services without getting a dime in return.

Are You Ready for the G Generation?

Research into the development of the brain has shown early childhood and adolescence are the critical years for how the brain is prepared for perceiving and reacting to the world. These critical years leave our brains with a particular set of assumptions and beliefs about how the world works.
  
Games reinforce certain beliefs about the players themselves, how the world should work, how people relate to one another, and about the purpose of life in general. 

Games create a self-centered universe where the player is in charge, and within certain rules or boundaries, can manipulate other people and objects. 

Data from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that an average 8-10 year old spends more than an hour a day with video games. The huge amount of time spent with video games during their formative years has led the Gamer or G Generation to be “hard wired” differently than those who came before them. 

Lead Like a Pirate

A Pirate Captain’s mission was clear and simple - plunder enemy vessels. The mission was clear and compelling and he and his team of Pirates lived it every day. Under the Captain’s strong leadership, the team of Pirates acted with urgency and confidence, persisted through challenging and ever-changing circumstances, and created extraordinary and measurable results.

Isn’t that exactly what you’re asked to do? If you are not getting the same level of commitment and results, it may be time to throw out your old, boring mission statement and - Lead like a Pirate!

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.

The Five Most Common Self-Limiting Beliefs

There are a set of theories that I call Monica’s Laws of the Universe. Granted, these theories are not based in science, or documented research… just behaviors and results that I observe in family, friends, clients, colleagues, and even enemies.

One of the Laws is called Greatest Fear – Greatest Success. It states that your greatest area of fear, the thing you are most afraid of, the thing that causes your hands to get clammy and shake, your heart beat faster, and your stomach churn, whatever that is … your greatest fear will be your ultimate area of success and triumph...

I believe for example that people who are terrified of getting in front of a group of people to speak really have something to say that others need to hear. Your main area of fear is more than likely the area where you are called to shine.

In every situation that you face there is a filter that frames your perception of the world and the Law of Perception says, “You do not see the world as it really is, you see it as you perceive it to be.” Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you see someone being successful in something and you say, “I could never do that?” That kind of statement is based in a habit of fear or self-limiting belief.

Although I grew up with an athletic sister, I never saw myself as an athlete. Only 18 months older than me, people often compared us and my earliest memories involve comparisons of our looks, singing talents, brains, athleticism, and weight.

I have an old black and white photo that became the main theme of my beliefs and habits that shaped my childhood, teens, and most of my adult life. It is a picture of Melanie (my sister) and me. Melanie is about 4 ½ and I am 3 years old. In the picture we are facing each other; my sister has a pink and white gingham bikini with ruffles on the butt… cute, cute, cute! I have on the ugliest navy blue tank suit you have ever seen.

The annoying thing is that my sister has no “fufu” in her at all – she could care less about those adorable ruffles on the butt. I asked my mom if I could have a cute suit like Melanie’s, and I was told that I was too “chubby” to wear a bikini that I need to cover my belly and my thighs.

So from the age of 3 all my decisions were based on the belief that I was the chubby girl and when you are the chubby girl you make decisions based on the “chubby girl factor.”

I learned that big and beautiful aren't ideas that go together. Chubby girls aren’t the most popular, don’t become cheerleaders, never date the hot guys, and aren’t as smart as the thin, pretty girls. Most of my important life decisions were based on my belief of the “chubby girl factor” – that I was not good enough, thin enough, smart enough, strong enough, or pretty enough.

I only did those things that are appropriate for chubby girls to do – play an instrument in the band, sing in the choir, become a cast member in the musicals, earn straight B’s, and serve as editor of the yearbook – all acceptable for chubby girls. I squashed many of my own desires, dreams, and ambitions because of these feelings of unworthiness.

Reality Check: Your fear or self-limiting beliefs may have nothing to do with being a chubby girl, but you've got something. Here are five of the most common self-limiting beliefs:

1. Believing that you are not good enough to do anything. You weren't born into the right family, not the right race, not the right gender, born on the wrong side of the tracks, whatever it is; you are just not good enough to achieve anything. Maybe someone said you weren't smart enough, that you don't have special abilities or qualities, or that you just need to do the “best that you can.” If you aren't smart enough, have no special qualities, than you aren't worthy enough to achieve great things.
2. People just don't like me. This is a big one a lot of people believe. Now I'm not talking about rude people, I'm talking about your basic nice person. This belief makes you think that no one wants to be your friend or would like you because of the flaws you have. The reality is that we all have flaws. We are all likeable. People like people who like them. To have a friend be a friend.
3. You will be rejected. Driven by fear that people might not like what you have to say, or may object to what are asking them to do. One of the main reasons that sales people don't “ask for the sale” is because they are afraid they won't get it, they are afraid they will be told “No.” The trouble is, if you don't ask, you don't get.
4. Something is impossible to achieve. For example, I've been told for a couple years now by people who hear me speak that I am as good as the $15,000 keynoter they saw recently. I've not yet been paid that kind of money, so evidently I'm not. It’s not that I actually believe that it is impossible to achieve, it’s just that I don't know how to make it happen, and if I don’t learn, it is impossible. The same may be true for you, you think that you can, but you don't really know how to achieve your dream, and if you don’t find out how, study with the right people, study, learn, change mindsets, etc. it will be impossible to achieve.
5. The belief that you are destined for failure. This is one of the most damaging self-limiting beliefs that you can have, the belief that whatever they do will end up in failure. If you try, it is not going to work, so why bother. So they don't do anything beneficial or you stop half way and then ultimately you do fail. That could be why you haven’t started or put much energy into the 3 or 4 things that you know will make the difference in achieving your dreams. Perhaps you are afraid of failing, or you believe that you will fail. So, if you don't do it, then you can’t fail.

As an adult I still fight that chubby label. I often take clothes into the dressing room that are way too large, but when eyeing up the smaller sizes, my belief is that I would never fit into them. It is amazing how the faulty belief system causes you to make certain decisions such as a career choice, fees charged to clients, the friends, colleagues, and even lovers you choose.

So what is your greatest area of fear? Push through it because it may be your  ultimate area of success and triumph!

About the Author: 

Monica Cornetti

Founder and CEO, Sententia

www.SententiaGames.com

www.monicacornetti.com

A gamification speaker and designer, Monica Cornetti is rated as a #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.

Roman Rackwitz - Why Gamification Works – Even for Serious People

Roman Rackwitz is a Gamification Pioneer.

Based in Germany, Roman brings us his unique perspective of gamification design and implementation in his country -- with the serious Germans.

In this episode of Gamification Talk Radio we explore:  

• How Gamification succeeds by focusing on the individual level rather than on the organizational one?
• Why Gamification is a natural fit for societies like Germany?
• How is the Gamification industry in Germany doing?
• What are the particular challenges for the industry in Germany or let’s say central Europe?
• What kind of organizations are looking for Gamification?
• Is there a significant market coming up for Gamification approaches?
• Can you see interesting connections between Gamification and other actual trends?

About Roman:  Roman Rackwitz is a Gamification Pioneer from Germany. As the founder of Engaginglab (engaginglab.com) he leads the first established Gamification Agency within the German speaking countries (D-A-CH). He is rated a Top 10 Gamification Guru in the World by the agency Rise.Global, and is a Partner at the Enterprise Gamification Consultancy (enterprise-gamification.com/).

In 2015, Roman founded RACKSOCIAL. It uses the knowledge, and the experience from Gamification, about how to create attention and engagement on Social Media. He is the Chair at GamifyCon, Germany's first Gamification Conference (gamifycon.org) and co-founded GamFed, the worlds first Gamification Association.

About Your Host: A gamification speaker and 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 host of the weekly Gamification Talk Radio program. 

Monica is a former Corporate Executive and an influential speaker, writer, and gamification expert in the Talent Development industry. She holds a Bachelors degree in Psychology, a Masters in Economic Development and Entrepreneurship and has been featured on the cover of Bloomberg's BusinessWeek. 

She is a professional consultant and known for being one of the leading players in thinking differently to create remarkable results. In fact, as an early adopter, she has been designing and delivering gamification programs for her clients since 2008.

www.monicacornetti.com
www.sententiagames.com
 
More about Gamification World Conference:  https://gamification.world/congress