I have been reading a lot lately about the gamification of work. While I support making anything having to do with making work interesting and engaging, I am not in favor of people treating their careers like a game.
I can hear it now. “Go ahead and try to fire me. I have infinite life and infinite money.”
Or how about this: If I don’t like your proposal, I’ll get a few birds and a slingshot and show you how much I want to destroy it. (I’ve been practicing this one……)
Although, there are good parts of gaming too. A gamer has been using enterprise software and chat technology way longer than us corporate wonwks. This has created a generation of multi-taskers who can talk, make decisions and choose complex button combinations at the same time.
A gamer is always trying to get to the next level. That’s good in the workplace isn’t it?
Gamers have been collaborating since long before it became fashionable. I remember my son playing on the same team as his cousin and a guy from camp who both lived far away at the time. No silos there. True, they were trying to kill bad guys with automatic weapons but they were doing it together, as a team.
Perhaps it’s time for Electronic Arts or Ubisoft to start management consulting practices. Maybe they could help organizations sort out which parts of gamification make sense for their work groups.
Until then….keep playing Minecraft and Candy Crush. You never know when you might have blast apart someone’s proposal.
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