Episode 24 Motivation in the New Year
Motivation in the New Year
Dr. Dave Eng:
All right. Welcome everyone. Again, my name is Dave Eng from games-based learning by University XP. Today, I'm joined by my colleague, Tim Collings. Tim, can you introduce yourself?
Tim Collings:
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Dave. My name's Tim Collings. I'm based in New South Wales, Australia. I'm the CEO of a leadership performance consultancy called 4i Leadership and the host of the Better World Leaders podcast.
Dr. Dave Eng:
All right. Tim, thanks for joining us today. Because this year is coming to an end, I know that one of the most important things that is important for both of our audiences is motivation. Specifically on my side, I like to think about motivation as a component of really great games, specifically intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation. I think before we start talking about that, what about you, Tim? From your side, how does motivation affect your practice and the people you serve?
Tim Collings:
Yeah, absolutely. It's fundamental to performance. You can be the most talented, most capable, most experienced person in whatever field you're practicing in and serving in and if the motivation is absent or dwindling or variable, that it's a significant impact on performance. We quite often see motivation significantly impacted by culture, within a team level in particular. And exactly like you Dave, we look at motivation as being something that can be stimulated externally, but that predominantly exists internally. And then we would reference intrinsic motivation specifically around things like purpose and values alignment, and then sense of belonging and connection with teammates and so on. It's a big deal. And I think 2020 has been such a unique year and especially around motivation with things like, are you an essential worker, are you not an essential worker? What does that mean? What does that do to your intrinsic motivation and so on? I'm looking forward to this conversation. I think it's very apt that we've met and that we've decided to have this conversation right now.
Dr. Dave Eng:
You talked about intrinsic motivation because I brought it up before. I think what's important about games and just basically any professional practice with intrinsic motivation is that there's an internal drive. And you talked about that, about the desire to do this, the desire to accomplish something. Because it's the end of the year and January is right around the corner, a lot of people are going to be setting up their new year's resolutions, setting goals and everything else. And one of the things that I think you can take over from using games for drawing and capitalizing on intrinsic motivation is that intrinsic motivation is driven internally.
Dr. Dave Eng:
And one of the quotations I like to use for any sort of game design is that it is important that the players have a goal to win in your game. However, the most important part about your game design is not about your players winning, the most important part is about having that goal. What I tell a lot of other professionals and just game designers in general is that having a goal, having an objective in and of itself is valuable. It doesn't mean that a player has to win or achieve that goal every time. But the most important thing is to have the goal rather than to focus on just the win.
Tim Collings:
Yeah, absolutely. That applies absolutely in the gaming environment, but I would say applies universally to life as well. Again, it's something that we just talk about time and time again in leadership forums and workshops, what are the goals that you're setting for your people? What are the goals you're setting for yourself? What are the questions that you're asking yourselves and your people in order to set those goals? If the goal's unreachable it's de-motivating, if it's too easily achievable, then it's demotivating a different way. Because it just doesn't seem like it's worth doing. You get there and you're, "Oh, it didn't take me much to progress through those levels or get past that boss", or whatever it was. I'm simplifying the gaming experience obviously. There's a lot of nuance and a lot of craft obviously into this, which is why great game design is not universal, in actual fact.
Dr. Dave Eng:
Exactly. I know we talked a whole lot about intrinsic motivation, but I think what's equally important to recognize is that there is extrinsic motivation, which means that the source of that motivation comes from an external factor. One of the most common ones we see on a regular basis is the reason why people work jobs. People work jobs because they exchange their services, their talent, their experience for money. And while in game design, that is not often the type of factor we try to prioritize. I think what's really important to remember is that intrinsic motivation in its own right, is also valuable because this is how people live their lives. This is how people make a living. I think it's still important that whenever you are working on your own personal goals, that there are going to be some extrinsic reasons why you want to achieve a goal. Perhaps you want a better paying job, perhaps you want a job at more prestige, perhaps maybe you even want to be recognized for the work you're doing right now, or reach the next step and get a promotion. When we talk about intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation, we're not to say one is better than the other, but there are reasons that drive intrinsic goals versus extrinsic goals.
Tim Collings:
No, I think that's exactly it. I think the benefit of recognizing the two sources is that you can factor them both into the equation. For us, we look at gaming primarily as a learning experience and a pathway to create learning environments that are interesting and stimulating. We look at extrinsic motivators like status and progressing through a game variation learning pathway gives you status that you're the leader of the pack or you're three levels ahead of whatever cohort. It does induce that little bit of competitiveness. And for those that are motivated extrinsically by essentially beating or being ahead of others, then you can latch onto those extrinsic motivators to encourage them to progress through the learning experience.
Dr. Dave Eng:
Yeah. I think no matter which type of goal you decide to prioritize or focus on in the coming year, one of the things that I've relied on myself in my professional practice and is really just good game design is the aspect of chunking. Taking a large goal, maybe in a game it is to defeat a boss or reach a victory point count or doing anything else and really trying to identify what are the smaller individual steps I need to take first. And usually in what order do I need to take them in order to achieve that goal? Not only is this great game design, because it helps structure the interaction that player is going to have with the game. But it's just also good professional practice, because approaching a really big goal can be hard and daunting, but breaking it up into smaller, manageable chunks that you address one at a time is much more approachable.
Tim Collings:
Yeah, absolutely. And I think, again, that could have a universal law applicability. But certainly we see this a lot in demotivating issues in teams in the workplace where they see the company has a big goal to become the best or the market leader or whatever the huge, enormous, overall goal might be. And they feel personally disassociated from that because they just think, well, what can I do in my, whatever it is that they're doing on a daily basis to contribute to that goal. But the really effective leaders will chunk that goal right down to you on an individual level, on a daily basis. Let me show you what the pathway is. And then they can produce chunk to goals, which then, they can apply an extrinsic motivator to, and they can work to communicate what the link to the intrinsic motivator of that individual is. And then you see this cascade of domino effect. Your dominoes are those little goals that go on every day and that momentum gets you to the big one.
Dr. Dave Eng:
And I think you brought up a really good point, Tim, about having relevance for the individual members of your organization and your individual players. It's something that I've talked about and written about before called, player agency. Because if you look at really great games, your players have to have some sort of ability to affect what happens to them in the game. And also what happens inside of the game. When you take away that ability you take away player agency, and really that means that players no ability to make any choice or any decision or anything worthwhile. And a really interesting example that I like to turn to regularly is the game of bingo, because bingo is a game that is widely recognized. However, when you think about it, you really don't have any player agency. The bingo caller announces a grid number, and then you mark it on your grid. You can't choose to not mark it, you can't choose to do anything else. You just have to keep following along. In terms of game design, I would say, bingo is not the best game design, but it does help you think about player agency and the decisions that people can make.
Tim Collings:
Yeah. I think player agency is a fantastic example. I love the analogy. I'm struggling now to stop visualizing a whole bunch of people sitting in a bingo hall. That's why I'm laughing a bit. I think it's analogous to again, take it back to the corporate workplace environment. If your KPIs are set by a source that's a long way away from you and your job is simply to show up and slowly, very rhythmically, progress towards the achievement of some very distant, far away goal, that you have no immediately perceived influence over, then that's a very limited source of motivation. Whereas if the source is more approximate that's setting the goal, or if you are interacting with setting the goal, if the game is asking you, what would you like to achieve today? And then you've got full agency over how you interact with that.
Tim Collings:
Not as a highly experienced gamer, but if I would look at something like Minecraft, for example, where you're going, "Oh, today I'm going to go over here. I'm going to explore this part of the world. And my goal for myself today is to stay alive or to acquire this set of assets", or whatever. That's a far more motivating and they're more captivating and therefore more stimulating gaming experience. It's the exact same thing when we look at leadership in the workplace. Have people participate in setting their goals, make their goals relevant, achievable, satisfying, intrinsic motivation with an external motivator. That's where you're going to get far greater performance.
Dr. Dave Eng:
I'm glad, Tim, you brought up Minecraft because not only is Minecraft one of the most popular games in the world, but it's also what is known as a sandbox type game. Where really, the structure enables players to make any type of decision they want, which is a very open way of addressing game design and game play. Another example I like to use though, is since a lot of players play it and it's been around for a long time, something like World of Warcraft, which is a massive multiplayer online role-playing game. There, the game designers have set up individual quests. You can think about those as individual projects, if you're in professional work environment. Now in the game, there are certain quests that very low level players, beginner players can attempt. And there are some quests that very high-level, advanced players can attempt. But the order in which you attempt them is going to ultimately be up to the individual players or in this case, your individual professionals. Because, you may have a manager that may set goals for the organization, but if you really want to get the most, I think out of your professionals, at least giving them the agency and allowing them to make meaningful decisions based on those quote unquote, quests, that they wanted to undertake.
Tim Collings:
Yeah, absolutely. Maybe if we just start to slide the dialogue back to the contemporaneousness of where we sit today, let's talk about goal setting and maybe goal setting for 2021. And we try and wrap up everything that we've touched on so far. Because I think that last point that you made is a neat segway to something that's been going through my mind, which is about involving others in both the goal setting and the participation of the goal as a really powerful mechanism of actually achieving the goal. That speaks to two things. It speaks to accountability and it speaks to creating shared meaning around the goal. I think that's been one of the most interesting things to me is someone who grew up as a gamer, essentially, always in a solo environment because I was almost pre-internet gaming. I hadn't quite got there.
Tim Collings:
But certainly the only level of interaction with sitting alongside someone you're playing a two or maybe if you're lucky three or four player with people in the same environment. And then that inter connectivity on a global basis has just completely changed the game in the gaming environment. And it's all about shared accountability. You told me, you're going to show up at this time, we've got a crew together and we're off to achieve this mission. That's an accountability framework. And again, you see that happening in effective goal-setting and participation in the workplace. And then similarly, well let's agree what the shared goal's going to be and let's agree what each of our roles is going to be. And then we'll work towards that in Warcraft, in Halo, whatever it's going to be and again, in the workplace.
Tim Collings:
I think if people are looking internally and they're thinking about what do they want to strive towards achieving in 2021. Let me attempt this and then you please reciprocate. I think you could think about a number of ways of setting a goal, which is going to be beneficial to you. I think you could think about it being a goal, which is going to really challenge you. But it's either an enormous goal that you can chunk down into maybe a specific goal per month, or it's a stretch goal for the year, but it's something that is already maybe 85% within your capability. And you've just got to add something new to get there. Think about the goal, think about how you can chunk it, how you can make it a stretch goal. Second thing is, share the goal with somebody and have them hold you accountable to it. That's like playing with a buddy, in a virtual gaming environment and saying, "Let's go for this goal this week." And they're really there really isn't much else to say, "Hey, we were going to go for this, this week. Let's keep going."
Tim Collings:
And then the third way would be, is there someone that you could actually involve in the attainment of the goal and that you can actually strive for the achievement of the goal together? You may have different roles in achieving the goal, but that then, to an extent, is the optimum because with that other person, you can chunk the goal. They may have different skills to you. They may bring something else to the table in terms of motivation. They'll hold you accountable and moving towards a goal with shared meaning with another person, at least, one is another very powerful way to motivate both of you to achieve the goal. That would just be my little recipe from those different elements that Dave and I have brought together. Dave, what would your thoughts be on achieving a goal for the next year?
Dr. Dave Eng:
So for me, I would really want to concentrate on setting up goals that can be done in an order in which you are going to choose as an individual. And one of the things that I rely on, on a regular basis, as I call it, LHF tasks on my task list. And those stand for low hanging fruit. And the reason why I like to focus on low hanging fruit, particularly in the morning, because when I'm getting into a regular routine, I want to be able to take care of things that can be done quickly and easily. And don't exactly use a whole lot of brain power at that time. It's because I need my coffee to get ready in the morning. And I really like to focus on taking care of these smaller, really discrete tasks. What I tell people is that some people have philosophies where they say, only work on two to three things a day and then work on those really big things in the morning that will work for some people. And that's totally fine if you're that person.
Dr. Dave Eng:
However, if you're anything like me, you need some momentum to get going. What I like to do is, I will put the easiest things first, or the things that take the least amount of effort to do first. Feel like I built up some momentum, once I'm feeling good, I can start working on some of those more advanced tasks. And where there is a connection to games here is, if you ever see any individual in-game challenges or achievements, sometimes when you begin playing the game for the very first time, you're just earning achievements like every two minutes or so. And that's because the game has been set up and structured in such a way so that it gives you this really good, regular active reinforcement loop. However, as all those achievements begin to be completed, the only things that are left are the much harder ones. The ones that require you to really stretch yourself similar to what you said, Tim, to accomplish something that you may not even have been shooting for. And also things that may be very difficult for you to do given your skillset. For me, my personal philosophy is handle that low hanging fruit first, build some momentum and then work on those more significant things later on.
Tim Collings:
Yeah. I really liked that. I think there's a lot in there that I can relate to. I would have a slightly different approach, which I'll explore in a moment, but I think that's a really powerful distillation of an approach that sets you up, gets that pendulum swinging, with the stuff that works for you. I'd say 2020 for me has been a really interesting experiment in the things that work and the things that make me work because it's been so different and there's been such variance in the workflow in our business. And obviously. The changeable conditions in the environment. What I've found is a bit of a shift towards focusing very strongly on what time of day is optimum for me to execute which task.
Tim Collings:
As the leader of a business where there's all the normal business operating stuff that you've got to deal with, but there's also marketing elements and there's expert content development program design. What I find is the more creative elements of those things are better for me to do at a particular time. I'm a morning person, once I'm up and I've got the juices flowing, I almost need to lock myself away and in order to make best use of my creative capability. I tend to do that first up, whether it's for an hour or the whole morning. And then I can get into more of the connecting task, checking in with customers, speaking with clients, interacting with my team whilst I've still got sufficient fuel in the tank and motivation, but I've already gotten through some of the more important work.
Tim Collings:
Whereas I would start by checking in with the team and then sort of move into some of the customer interaction. But what I would find was that would basically draw too much of my energy out of me early in the day and would distract me from actually doing the creative work. You're talking about separating the goal and deciding on the order of it. That you might think about if it's a goal that isn't necessarily a linear pathway. If it's a goal that's got different composite elements and you can decide on the ordering of them, then it might be similar. You might look at your approach, Dave, and go, yep, great. Low hanging fruit, I'll take three things maybe, and just make some progress, feel like I'm getting into a flow with it, or you might look at it and go, okay, well actually that's what I'm best at that. Now, that might not be the easiest bit, but that's something that I'm really good at. If I do that first, then I'll have a really strong foundation point and I might start my version of the day in a really good position.
Tim Collings:
I just wanted to just share an analogy from the business and an example of this, of chunking a big goal, sharing something that we're committing to for the new year, and then looking at how to bring a group of people together around a shared goal. Our whole philosophy as leaders can make the world better. Our work is entirely around serving leaders who are striving to make the world better. One of the things that we've signed up to as a big goal is to create a million impacts towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals in 2021.
Tim Collings:
That's a big goal. It's a lot to do, especially for a small organization, we're 15 people. But we've chunked it right down to every individual interaction. Every time we have an interaction with a customer or a customer group, we create a thousand impacts. If my math is good, we're going to do a thousand of those to hit our goal. If you can attach an achievement of a goal to something that you would be doing ordinarily, then that can also really remove a lot of the perceived obstacle to this huge goal. We run workshops, we do podcasts interviews, we have coaching sessions. Rather than having to create an additional achievement in order to fulfill the goal, we take a part of the goal and we attach it to something that we're doing anyway, just reverse engineering the approach.
Tim Collings:
Every time we run a workshop, now the participants of that workshop vote for where within the UN SDG framework they want the goal they want the impact to go towards. Great, thanks very much. That's awesome. We'll put that towards health or renewable energy or innovative city design or whatever it is, and now we've created a thousand impacts. That might be another way to think about it. If one of your goals is something like exercise and wellbeing, can you attach that goal to something that you would be doing anyway? Maybe just parking a block further away from work than you normally would, enforces a little bit more pedestrian motion. You don't really have to do anything different. You're still commuting to work. You still going to the same workplace, but just parking a block away. Now that's going to maybe add, I don't know, 50, 60, 100 more steps in each direction to your work day. If you've got an objective of dropping a few pounds or adding a million steps to your year next year, one variable, chunking the goal, make somebody else accountable for asking you how that's going, parking a block away. These are all the very small steps towards significant progress.
Dr. Dave Eng:
I think that making sure that whatever you're doing will be able to support that end goal. Even if it's just small changes in your daily habits, are a great step towards accomplishing them. And then the last thing I wanted to talk about before we end here is you brought this up before Tim, when you were talking about the best time to use your creative energies. Because you talked about flow state and flow state is a concept that a lot of game designers and probably gamers are already familiar with. If you've never heard of the term flow state, it is a period of high engagement either for you as a person or as a gamer, or as a player where you become so engrossed in an activity that you lose track of time and space. This happens when we play games, it happens with musicians when they're playing a really complicated piece of music, with artists, it happens with high-performing athletes. And it happens when we regularly play games on a regular basis.
Dr. Dave Eng:
And my piece of advice is when you are in that flow state, because I often get into a flow state whenever I get really engrossed in my own writing, I try to ride it for as long as I can, because I know that once I lose it, I won't be able to get back into that creative mindset to continue writing again. Like what you said, Tim, is it entirely applicable if there is a time during your day, when you feel most creative or you can work on tasks the best, by all means, please structure your day around that because you want to take advantage of that flow state whenever you can.
Tim Collings:
Yeah. Or exactly as you say, if you happen to find yourself in it and if you can control your whole day and compress other parts of it. Don't leave, don't leave that state until that that work is done or until you're almost completely exhausted by it. That's a rare, but very beneficial state to be in. Dave, I think that's certainly all the ground that we intended covering today. I hope this has been an interesting experiment for us. We came together and said, let's try and co-create something for both our audiences in the one go. Let's unleash this thing into the world and see where it goes.
Dr. Dave Eng:
Same, likewise. Thanks for joining us, Tim.