New trends in L&D – gamification part 2
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Will you or members of your family be getting video games under the tree this year? If so, have you ever wondered why people get sucked into learning on video games, while there is much less dedication to corporate learning?
We had considerable interest in our last article on how gamification is leading the way for L&D, which established the principle that in gaming, effort not talent is consistently rewarded.
Another principle of gamification is that games are usually set up to use group learning in a really good way. Your 12-year-old up in his room may be getting a team of 5 players together, each playing characters with a specific and different set of skills – and then leading this group to make a concerted attack in a computer-generated scenario that requires problem-solving and mutual cooperation in order to defeat an enemy. I know a 40-year-old IT Director who said that he learned more about managing a team from repeatedly doing this than from any of the leadership courses he’d been on…
What are the dynamics of good group learning, that we can build on in L&D?
A key element is group rewards. In any group, there will be ‘naturals’ who master the subject matter fast, and people who need to put in more effort to achieve. In the normal classroom, the naturals get bored and revel in their talent, and the less adept get discouraged and ‘drop out’.
If the group is working to gain a reward that is only achievable once the whole group is working in a skilled way, however, the ‘naturals’ have an incentive to become leaders and coaches. Russian schools operate in this way, where whole classes strive towards goals, with excellent results.
We used this principle in the Emerging Talent programme at EDF, which was encouraging engineers to become leaders. This programme came second in the CIPD Talent Management Awards, and reached the Finals of 5 Talent Management Awards this year. The result? A 32% increase in self-driven learning, a 17% increase in engineers wanting to be leaders, and a 30% increase in the quality and quantity of candidates for first leadership positions.
How did we do this?
A key element of this programme was to form cohorts of 8 people. The team of 8 were taught the principles of workplace learning, and set a group goal. They organised their own learning journey on 4 aspects of leadership over 3 months – sourcing mentors, interviewing people, spotting opportunities to engage in leadership, and seeking feedback from skilled managers. At the end of this they were all tested on their leadership skills at a Development Centre.
Importantly, they were told at the start that the goal was for EVERYONE to achieve the highest possible ratings on the DC. We positioned this as a key part of leadership – helping others to do better, through excellent feedback and supportive help. We provided a structure and guidelines which helped them do this. And we told them that at the DC, we’d ask each person to tell us who in the team had helped them to improve.
Take Away
If you want to drive personal ownership of learning and career development in your high potential and early talent groups, you need to engineer the rewards that create individual competition, and the rewards that drive group cooperation, to get the results you want.
Ask yourself – do you want self-driven learning to be an individual or team sport?