Gamification: The Quick Fix That Doesn't Fix Anything
Here’s why I think badges and points and gamification in general is kind of a waste of your time in your program.
The idea behind gamification and badges and points is that it’s going to keep people progressing through your program.
That it’s going to motivate them to watch the lessons to earn more points, or to submit that quiz to unlock the next badge.
But the problem is that gamification is most often used as a band aid solution for shitty curriculum design and poor program structure.
In reality, there are two types of motivation:
1)The first type of motivation is extrinsic or external motivation.
This is the type of motivation that gamification speaks to. It’s the shiny carrot that people work towards or the stick that people are running away from. This is an external motivator that is driving their progress forward.
2) The second type of motivation is intrinsic motivation or internal motivation.
This is the drive that comes from within. It’s the inner journey that you’re on or the program that you’re learning, and it relates to something that you want deep within yourself. It’s related to your values, or an inner goal that you’re working towards. It’s an inner drive that is moving you forward because what you want is deeply relevant to you.
The problem that happens is we put so much emphasis on these band aid solutions, and these extrinsic motivators like badges and points, because we think it’s going to move people through our program.
When in reality, the most important thing, the long term thing, that’s going to sustain transformation and sustain growth is an internal motivation and ensuring that everything you teach and the way your program is structured is deeply relevant to your people.
At the end of the day, we’re teaching adults. Adults who are busy, who have competing priorities, and have other things going on. They don’t have time for BS. They don’t have time for programs that aren’t relevant.
Which is why now more than ever it is so important that you’re intentionally architecting the program transformation, and the program journey, and that you can articulate why every single element of your program is relevant and relates to what they want most.
Because otherwise your people are going to question why they’re learning or doing this program and they’re going to find some sort of reason to exit out of the learning experience.
So you can have all the badges and points in the world but that’s not going to fix the fact that if your program hasn’t been designed to lead people on a journey that’s relevant to them in a cut the fluff, or straight to the point, action focused kind of way, then all the badges in the world aren’t going to fix the poor program design.
So what I want you to do if you’ve been considering adding in some form of gamification to your program, I want you to ask yourself why.
Is there a specific barrier or problem you’re hoping to address that the gamification is going to solve?
And if so, is there something deeper underneath it that you can actually address structurally or in the content of your program, instead of adding extra layers of gamification or sparkly things on top to try and mask it?
If you've been questioning how to take your current program to the next level (without any gamification involved) I invite you to check out my Free video series: Evolve to envision what's truly possible to create in your program and identify the core areas of your program that are calling for change.
