Strategic Meetings Management

Have you started incorporating games (like a smartphone-based scavenger hunt or a trivia game) into your meetings? Games present a better, more unique way to deliver a message in a way that unites people and brings the walls down -- or in other words, engages them. They're great learning tools, too. And with the proliferation of social media and handheld devices, the spread of these games and their use in business will only grow.
 
I read two pieces recently in Corporate Meetings & Incentives magazine on gamification, and I thought I'd share some interesting ideas. One fascinating concept in the article, "Don't Add Games, Add Game Science," has to do with the science behind gaming: Humans have the drive to acquire, bond, create and defend, according to the book, Driven: How Human Nature Shapes Our Choices. These are all drives that are addressed in a good meetings game.
 
"The goal is for participants to feel they are part of an engaging long-term journey," said Michelle Pokorny, Solution Vice President, Employee Engagement and Recognition at Maritz Loyalty and Motivation, in the article.
 
So if you're adding games to meetings, bravo! But it makes a whole lot of sense to create games that meet our drive to acquire, bond with each other, create something unique and defend (as in a team).
 
Another piece I read -- in the same recent issue of CMI -- was a guest editorial by Mitchell Beer, President of Ottowa-based The Conference Publishers Inc. Beer, who did a case study on gamification that was part of the February 2011 Sustainable Meetings Conference, said gamification worked beautifully at that event because participants engaged with the content and purpose of the meeting, while they engaged with each other.
 
But he warns that it's counter-intuitive for meetings designers to adopt games before they fully understand it. Some common gamification landmines:
 
- no time for attendees to learn the game or for team leaders to prepare their role before the activity begins
- "needlessly complex" game rules
- when game time eats into valuable networking time
- no link between game challenges and meeting content
 
Games are great; I'm a big fan (just ask my Farmville and Texas Hold 'Em friends). But as these two articles pointed out: Stop, think and plan carefully before adding games. What you want with a game is to bring people together and add to and support event content.

Gamification is one of the best ways to get people into a change management mindset without being intimidating or authoritarian.  Don't let games conflict with your content or get in the way of people making contact and achieving your original intentions and goals.