I’ve been reading Jane McGonigal’s “Reality Is Broken” lately, and I’m excited about all the ideas it’s giving me. I recommend it to everyone, especially teachers and leaders. It’s a blast to read, and endlessly fascinating and eye-opening. I read a bit, I explain some to Turbo, I think about how I might apply it, and I read on.
(Turbo is my officemate. I have a habit of pretending I’m explaining what I’m thinking or reading to someone, because I’ve found that teaching someone else is a great way to learn.)
The gist of it is that creating game dynamics (voluntary, goal-centered, feedback-rich, and structured) in arenas not traditionally viewed as game-friendly has yielded some astonishing results. By making our world more gamelike, we can have more fun, achieve more, and be more engaged with our world and each other.
I’ve used games and contests to motivate my teams before. Call center work is stressful and repetitive, and any little thing you can do to make it more fun is much appreciated. Right now my team is struggling to sustain stronger performance and a more positive environment.
McGonigal talks about a concept called the “jen ratio”, which is a simple way to measure the emotional energy of a space: observe the negative and positive interactions between people in that space (a street corner, a classroom, a workplace), then divide the positive count by the negative count. I’m guessing the jen ratio of my team’s work area is pretty low. And part of getting them to sustain a higher level of performance is getting them to be happier and more positive.
Enter the Karma Bank. Everyone gets ten karma points a week. They can award karma points to each other for any little thing they see: handling a call well, helping a teammate, having a nicely decorated desk, being friendly, or whatever else they think is worthy of recognition. I track the points given and received, and each point comes with a little decorated index card that says why it was awarded and by whom.
And the winner is the person who gives away the most points. The idea is to keep the points circulating, not to hoard them. In order to give away the most points, you’re going to have to earn some – if you give away one of yours, you’re giving someone else another point they can give away.
I think this will help them pull together more, help each other more, and see the shiny more. I’m kind of proud of it, truth be told.
It’s not in the traditional manager playbook where I work. But I’ve had my greatest, most rewarding successes throwing out the playbook and doing what works regardless of how it’s always been done before. “The eagle never lost so much time as when he submitted to learn of the crow.”
Let’s see how this works out.
