Work Is Not a Game

As a very modern manager and reader of RTM , you know that your business teams would benefit from more diverse, timely, and expert knowledge than they could possibly have internally ( Spencer 2013 ). So you've tried using social media methods (either within the company or outside of it, or both), but frankly, not that many people seem to care. There's a flurry of activity after each announcement of a new challenge, but it dies out quickly. You've heard about gamification, a fast and easy way to get more involvement. But what is it? How can you use it? Should you?Gamification is the application of some of the attributes of video games (points, badges, and leaderboards) to a voluntary business process to encourage participation. When done thoughtfully and in moderation, it may be helpful. However, it is not a substitute for real, sustainable motivation-and in some cases, it may actually be demotivating. Done poorly or without thought, gamification can promote selfish and competitive behavior over cooperation and generate antipathy or perceptions of unfairness among the low-participating majority. And overdone, it may distract from the real business purpose of the project and drive unwanted behavior.The Immutable Pattern of Voluntary ParticipationBecause gamification is intended to increase participation, it's important to note the completely different signatures of mandatory versus voluntary participation. In a traditional, appointed business team, we generally expect everyone to contribute comparably, each according to his or her relevant knowledge: there should be no total slackers, and neither should one or two individuals dominate. Voluntary online forums have an entirely different signature-a long tail of participation, in which a few people contribute many times and a very large number contribute just once or twice or not at all. This holds true whenever participation is voluntary, in every industry, at every scale ( Spencer and Woods 2010 ; Spencer 2012 ).The important thing to note is that this long-tail pattern is normal and universal. About 75 percent of content in such a forum will come from those who contribute just one, two, or three times. There is nothing wrong with this pattern, and people are not being lazy; in fact they're exercising a choice over where to spend their limited time and attention. In other words, participation in voluntary forums can't be judged by the same standards applied to conscripted teams. The pattern is intrinsic, and it doesn't matter if the motivation is altruistic or tangible: participation in Innocentive, whose challenges have payouts in the thousands of dollars, has the same long-tail form as altruistic challenges ( Spencer 2012 ). This pattern will not be changed by gamification.Motivation, Demotivation, and EngagementIn the century since Frederick Taylor, Henry Ford, and Alfred Sloan invented the modern corporation, there has been an active, research-driven literature about motivation at work; researchers have generated considerable consensus around what motivates us. Herzberg (1987) and the huge Gallup studies on engagement (see Buckingham and Coffman 1999 ; Coffman and Gonzales-Molina 2002 ) capture the key points:* Motivating factors and demotivating factors are different from each other. For knowledge workers, for instance, money is not a strong motivator but, if it is perceived to be given unfairly, it can be a strong demotivator.* Perceived unfairness in policies and procedures is strongly demotivating. Fairness (or its lack) is recognized as a powerful force that may override economics in decision making ( Kahneman 2011 , 308).* The strongest motivator for knowledge workers is the belief that one's contributions matter, that they make a difference and serve a useful purpose.Daniel Pink's (2009) comprehensive review of motivation reinforces these points, concluding that knowledge work is driven by the desire for autonomy, mastery, and purpose. …