Gamification for Business

What if play could revolutionize the workplace? Dive into how games can break barriers, spark innovation, and reimagine the way we work.

1. Games Create Learning Through Doing

Games encourage experiential learning, engaging both hands and minds to teach new concepts. Borrowing from Seymour Papert’s concept of constructionism, games use multiple sensory inputs, such as sight and touch, to help participants absorb knowledge more effectively. This active involvement makes the learning process enjoyable and memorable.

Within a business setting, games build skills by placing employees in scenarios unrelated to typical roles. By crafting and solving imaginative problems, employees can develop soft skills like problem-solving and cooperation, while discovering novel ways to approach tasks.

Importantly, games level the workplace hierarchy. They temporarily remove titles and ranks, immersing everyone in a fair playing field. The “magic circle,” a concept from Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman, highlights this ability of games to create a egalitarian environment where employees are freer to think creatively and collaborate.

Examples

• Team-building exercises where participants solve puzzles together.
• Activities where managers and junior employees switch roles.
• A Lego challenge to imagine innovative solutions for a shared problem.

2. Aligning Values with Play

When businesses are rapidly expanding, employees can lose sight of the company’s purpose, which affects their morale and productivity. To reconnect teams with shared organizational values, games like Align offer a targeted solution.

Align focuses on values like passion, courage, and customer focus. Players are presented with workplace challenges and must collaboratively decide on responses that align with these core principles. Scored on elements like employee and customer satisfaction, they learn to integrate values into daily decisions.

By participating in Align, employees not only comprehend the business's values logically but also experience working through them practically. It strengthens cultural cohesion and provides a framework for behavior across teams.

Examples

• Resolving workplace dilemmas using the core value of customer focus.
• Players collaboratively hitting goals for overall team satisfaction.
• Demonstrating courage in hypothetical scenarios to boost scoring.

3. Building Collaboration Through LinkXs

Team collaboration can sometimes falter due to poor communication or conflicting goals. LinkXs addresses this by simulating a scenario where multiple teams must share incomplete information to reach a solution, forcing participants to negotiate and work together.

The structured flow of LinkXs helps highlight ways to support group productivity. Participants improve their ability to balance personal targets against collective goals. Moreover, participants often uncover unified strategies that can be carried back to their daily operations.

This method also fosters communication that avoids conflict. When shared success depends on clarity and teamwork, employees naturally develop better interpersonal skills.

Examples

• Teams navigating simulated tasks where success demands cooperation.
• Developing creative approaches for negotiating shared resources.
• Learning conflict resolution to maintain momentum.

4. Energizing Meetings with Playful Tools

Many workplace meetings fail to engage or produce meaningful outcomes. As Dan Roam observes, traditional formats often result in “blah blah blah meetings,” where nothing sticks. By gamifying the meeting design process, participants can elevate these gatherings into action-oriented discussions.

The Meeting Design Game enables planners to visually outline objectives, priorities, and strategies for upcoming meetings. Using cards representing elements like participant involvement and meeting flow, organizations can collaboratively design structured agendas.

The game ensures every attendee’s input matters, making meetings vibrant and purposeful. It transforms passive listeners into active contributors with clear roles and responsibilities during the discussion.

Examples

• Ordering the Meeting Design Game cards collaboratively before a company-wide meeting.
• Developing a food-and-setup plan for a more engaging venue.
• Allowing team members to prioritize their most important meeting concerns.

5. Balancing Old and New Projects with Business Branching

Companies often struggle to balance their established projects with incoming opportunities. Guided by Rita McGrath’s value cycle theory, the Business Branching game trains participants to allocate resources between these competing priorities effectively.

This game challenges players to transition projects through stages like ramping up, maintaining, or finally reconfiguring and discarding older branches. Teams propose initiatives like launching a new plan or improving current processes while managing limited resources.

By practicing these resource balancing acts, participants gain a clear understanding of when to innovate and when to optimize. It illuminates how businesses can avoid being overwhelmed by juggling too many tasks simultaneously.

Examples

• Exploring when to shift budget allocation from existing products to prototypes.
• Identifying key projects to shut down due to declining returns.
• Mapping the lifecycle of a new business venture.

6. Breaking Out of Stale Thinking with Innovate or Dinosaur

Companies often plateau when employees fall victim to unchanging thought patterns. The Innovate or Dinosaur game confronts stagnant organizations, teaching them to escape mental ruts and embrace unconventional ideas.

In part one, players define bottlenecks in the company. In part two, they brainstorm solutions and simulate the effort it takes to implement those ideas. The game encourages thinking beyond traditional methods and considering wild new options.

Innovate or Dinosaur doesn’t just create ideas—it turns creative thinking into a repeatable process that prevents businesses from slipping back into complacency.

Examples

• Refining services to be faster and more efficient during gameplay sessions.
• Troubleshooting issues through prompts about outdated approaches.
• Generating swift, actionable ideas by tackling each pain point.

7. Easing Leadership Challenges with Wallbreakers

Leadership requires adaptability. By playing Wallbreakers, managers practice implementing long-lasting workplace changes while addressing resistance from employees. Participants simulate managing teams through change phases like designing strategies, reassuring staff, and delivering results.

Wallbreakers introduces managers to hypothetical situations that test their decision-making abilities. Leaders must resolve conflicts between employees’ concerns and the organization’s goals by balancing progress and harmony.

This game is a safe environment to explore the pitfalls and successes of driving change, which participants can later apply to their real-world teams.

Examples

• Deciding what pace of workplace change works best for a team.
• Handling imaginary disruptions caused by employee resistance.
• Simulating the effect of firing disengaged workers for stronger group synergy.

8. Turning Work into Play Enlists Employees' Motivation

Not all interactions in the workplace are inspiring. By gamifying routines and discussions, organizations can create dynamic opportunities for employees to participate and solve problems creatively. The results? Better engagement and higher enthusiasm levels.

For example, icebreaker games like Sudden Survey initiate the exchange of ideas early in meetings. In just a few minutes, these activities spark conversations that create stronger peer relationships.

When done correctly, gamification gives purpose and effectiveness to day-to-day endeavors without adding unnecessary complexity.

Examples

• Using Sudden Survey to start strategy brainstorms with smaller groups.
• Implementing a card-based Q&A activity for networking sessions.
• Tasking staff with creating quick feedback posters during workshops.

9. Play Builds Leaders’ Creative Muscles

Lastly, the true power of gamification lies in its ability to innovate how individuals take charge. Games encourage leaders to challenge norms and foster an environment of exploration and respect.

Games that emphasize active participation encourage leaders to appreciate the perspective of their teammates. Over time, playing regularly builds sharper interpersonal skills and creativity to guide their team toward unexpected success.

Examples

• Managers conducting "stand-in player" scenarios to experience others' roles.
• Creative brainstorming where leaders co-develop solutions with their team.
• Practicing active listening during simulated one-on-one performance reviews.

Takeaways

1. Use a fun, interactive game to break the monotony of meetings and spark fresh ideas among employees.
2. Dedicate dedicated time each quarter to revisit company values using a structured gamified activity, ensuring alignment with your vision.
3. Prepare your managers by running leadership scenarios where they learn how to handle pushback and navigate change with ease.