Learning With Game Theory
October 26, 2010 — by Ed Francis
Our clients often come to us with questions like, “How do we engage our people in our strategy?” or “How do we get people to understand the Big Picture, and where they fit?” or “How do we get our different business groups working together to produce greater results?”
Do these questions sound familiar?
Creating a culture that promotes synergy, collaboration, clear expectations, accountability, excitement, and systems thinking is no easy task. Consulting firms make billions of dollars creating complex models, charters, and tools to help with this very thing. In the work that we do, we seldom hear Game Theory come up as a change management agent for organizations to achieve such a culture. Many people think of Game Theory as the introduction of video games in the workplace (I recently cringed when someone told me that the Nintendo Wii was the future of training), and they are usually shocked to hear that it has been around since the 1930’s…long before Atari, Nintendo, and Farmville.
When used properly, Game Theory enables the culture described earlier by focusing on systems thinking. As you watch this video from the NY Times that describes the use of video games in school, try to find the concepts that are relevant to business. Hopefully, it will prompt you to research Game Theory a bit more and help reshape your view of play in the workplace.
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shenna johnson says:
November 03, 2010 7:56 am
game theory…a subject near and dear to my nerdy heart! thanks for sharing the video – what a fascinating approach…i wish my son patrick could go to that school and truly unlock his creativity and passion for learning. i’ve watched him go from zero comprehension to four grades ahead when challenged in an online environment, and watched him play silly math games for 3 hours at a time when doing one worksheet took 3 days. being able to unlock things one level at a time and getting rewarded seems to be a magical combination – not just for kids, but for adults as well. (world of warcraft. need i say more? my brother-in-law nearly ended up divorced thanks to the time and money he spent on that game!)
as i have learned more about the principles of game design i have come to appreciate the different lenses used to develop interesting games – and would love to more thoughtfully apply these to business problems and see what kind of solution might be generated. (i could go on and on here…but i’m simply leaving a blog comment, not writing a dissertation…)
(hm. now i need to get elected to the school board, overthrow the current way of doing things, and implement just such a school for my kids to attend. and i need to get a client that will let me structure their training based on the principles of game design. i’ll just add it those two to the list of things to do.)
thanks for getting me started. at 3am.
Dave Ferrier says:
November 08, 2010 8:30 pm
Years ago I naively asked one of the (very) senior execs in my company “Have we ever thought about using the concept of video game design when we roll out new tools to our agents?” The reaction was as if I had walked into a Star Trek convention wearing a Star Wars outfit. But I still think my idea is valid.
Why ARE so many applications designed to make sense to the guy who programmed them, but not to the person who uses them?
I followed my question to her with another question “When is the last time anyone here read the directions that came with a video game?” And continuing my demise “Good games allow you to pick them up, start playing, die without too much of a penalty, and then continue on / hit reset. But we spend 3 weeks training our agents how to use our billing system and they STILL make significant mistakes.”
I’ve seen M&Ps that are 46 steps long to perform a single activity. Even the most diabolical puzzle game wouldn’t inflict 46 steps on a player to solve it.
I’m convinced that if someone took a typical customer service application (like a billing system) and designed it to function like a video game (plus included rewards, levelups, team competition, etc) that agents could FINALLY focus on the customer instead of worrying that they missed Step 15.