The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 318 - Games

Transcript:

Jen: Hello, Peter Shepherd.

Pete: Hello, Jennifer Waldman. I was about to say, "Jennifer Leigh Waldman." Is that your middle name? Yeah, it

Jen: Yeah, it is. L-E-I-G-H, that's right.

Pete: Jennifer Leigh Waldman.

Jen: Wait, what's your middle name?

Pete: Jonathan.

Jen: Peter Jonathan Shepherd. Well, today, I want to talk to you about games and challenges, which is something I've recently added to my online community. And wow, it has taken off.

Pete: Oh. Alright. I feel like you might be tapping into some competitive juices, by the sound of it.

Jen: I think so.

Pete: I find it always so amusing when you discover that someone that you knew quite well was like super competitive about really specific things. This is fun. Alright, I'm keen to dive in. This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Pete: Non sequitur, there's a favorite comedian of mine (I'll have to find this link and put it in the Box O' Goodies) that does this whole bit about board games, and he says, "Oh, I really like playing Monopoly, but as I like to call it, Which One Of My Friends Is A Competitive Asshole."

Jen: Well, in this case, it's actually done the opposite. It's generated good will in the community.

Pete: Nice. Okay, the opposite.

Jen: Okay, so here's the deal. JWS, which is my studio in New York for Broadway actors, has an online platform. And within that online platform, where all of the studio members mix and mingle, we have this community called The Career Collective. And this is a group of people who have opted in to work in community on career strategy. And it's awesome.

Pete: Magic.

Jen: It's so cool. And every month, I pick a theme. And I lead a workshop, on the first Monday of the month, on that theme. So the themes have really run the gamut, but ultimately it's all about career building. Several months ago, I want to say it was like April or May, I decided, "You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to create a game to go along with the theme for the month. And I'm going to take all the things that we talked about and put them on a Bingo card, and say to everyone, 'You have until the end of the month to work on this. And once you get bingo, you have to post Bingo in this thread.'"

Pete: Nice. Oh, here we go. This is good.

Jen: People were bingoing left and right.

Pete: People love a bingo. People love some Bingo.

Jen: I was so surprised. I honestly did not know if anyone would think it was cheesy or foolish or whatever, but they really got their game on and they went for it. And it was like the best month in The Career Collective yet. So I was like, "Huh. Maybe next month, I'll come up with a different challenge." So essentially, now, along with the workshop, I set up a challenge or a game for the month. And it has transformed the entire experience.

Pete: Okay, this is juicy. I have questions. The Bingo card, to start there, are the things that are on it almost like provocative actions or homework that you want them to take, based on what was discussed? Like, that's a slightly loaded question. Because I feel like what I know you do, and what we have done when we run workshops together, and what I grapple with or do when I run workshops with leaders, is, "What are you going to do between now and the next session," or, "What are you committing to, now that you've learned what you've just learned in this session? How are you going to put this into action?" Are they the kinds of things you're putting on the Bingo card?

Jen: That's correct, Pete.

Pete: Alright.

Jen: So like as an example, for the Bingo month, the theme was: Reach out. So this was about connecting with people to expand your network, so on the bingo card are a couple different actions they could take, or different categories of people to reach out to, or different platforms, different formats. So, it basically got them reaching out.

Pete: Great. So, it's a behavioral change mechanism. It's like gamifying behavioral change.

Jen: Yes.

Pete: I am obsessed with this. This is great. Because I think, I mean, I alluded to it just before, that one of the things I hear a lot from people in workshops and have experienced myself as a facilitator of said workshops, is we get all this learning, we get all fired up, we get these new frameworks and we're so excited about putting them into action. And then, a week later, we're drowning in our emails and our inbox and our meetings again, and we're like, "Oh, what was that thing that I committed to or that takeaway that I said I was going to put into action?" And I've come up with various different ways to try and make them stickier, make them more accountable, make them more likely to follow through. But I have not used a bingo card. I am feeling like this is a fun way to start to help people implement and create change for themselves.

Jen: And it's been a fun creative challenge for me. Because so far, I've not repeated myself. There's been a different game or challenge each month. Eventually, I will repeat myself. But so far, I've been trying to be original every month.

Pete: Oh, that's fun. What other...I'm trying to think. What are the other games that I know, like bingo, that would be applicable? What have you come up with?

Jen: Well, that one is the easiest one to explain in the amount of time that we have.

Pete: Okay, fair enough.

Jen: But like, this month was a challenge rather than a game. So, I shared with them the ten most important lessons I've learned in my twenty years of coaching Broadway actors. And then, the challenge was, "Turn my lessons into action items." And then, they have actually until this Sunday to submit their task list of action items based on the lessons learned, that they have until the end of the month to complete. And then, anyone who has completed their tasks gets entered into a raffle for a free strategy session with me. It's so fun.

Pete: This is great. And then, you do a raffle. Oh my god, look how...listeners can't see. Jen is beaming right now, describing these games. It's so fun.

Jen: Well, it's funny because the raffle I do using a name randomizer, a spinning wheel app.

Pete: So good.

Jen: And so, I record myself with the spinning wheel with all of their names on it.

Pete: Oh my god, this is great.

Jen: It's really fun.

Pete: Was Wheel of Fortune a game in America? A game show?

Jen: Yes. So it's a Wheel of Fortune wheel, exactly.

Pete: This is great. Wheel of Fortune...oh, what a throwback. The thing in my head I'm wondering is like, why is it that games and challenges are so effective? Like, what are we tapping in to? Some sort of human psychology or desire to be recognized or rewarded or incentivized for doing certain things? Like, it's a really simple but clever and nifty way to, again, create behavioral change. Which, you know, I feel like maybe there's an overlap with Gretchen Rubin's Four Tendencies framework, which we've talked about many times. Are you tapping in to the fact that some people are Obligers, and so do really well to have external accountability, which I guess you're providing them? The Upholders of the group, like me, I'd be like, "Oh, if you said that that's what I need to do, I'm going to say that's what I need to do. I'm just going to do it." So, I don't know. Is there an overlap there? Like, why is this so effective?

Jen: Well, Peter...

Pete: What's your theory?

Jen: Let me tell you, I have thought about this through the Gretchen Rubin framework quite a lot. And I feel like I should back up and say, I have been a part of memberships that have had some sort of like bonus or gamification system, and I have not participated in it.

Pete: Interesting.

Jen: In fact, like I rejected it very strongly. And so, I had to ask myself, why? And the answer was, none of it was customizable. And as a Questioner, I like to do things my own way, and that's why some of those games did not resonate with me. So what I've tried to do is, make the Obligers feel like they're obligated to do it. Get the Upholders to put it on their task list. And keep everything open enough, that the Questioners can do it any way that makes sense for them. And for the Rebels, the only guideline for them is when it's due. I'm not telling them when to do each individual thing or how to do it, so they can do it in their own way.

Pete: That's brilliant. Brilliant, brilliant. You are meeting people where they're at, but still having the same challenge. This just hit me. I don't know if this is an obvious thing to say, but in hearing what you just said, I feel like...I'm calling myself out, I guess. But I feel like this question of, "What worked for me," is so helpful when it comes to designing a workshop, or thinking about a challenge, or trying to create change with a group of people or someone. Like if you're a leader in a organization and you have a particular project that you have to roll out, and that requires a bunch of people to change certain behaviors, so often, I feel like we roll out the presentation or the pitch or the story of why we're going to make this change without pausing to think, "If someone said that to me, how would I respond?"

Jen: Right.

Pete: And I feel like there's probably a bunch of really important answers in that question, of like, "I would push back immediately and say, you know, 'Go to hell.'" It's like, "Okay. So if that's how you would respond, how could you change how you're going to approach this, based on that? Because there are other people that might respond in the same way."

Jen: Yeah. And then, the flip side lesson is, I would not have been drawn in by someone saying, "We're going to do a game or a challenge." But not everybody thinks the way I think. And when I said, "We're going to do a game the first month and a challenge the second month," a bunch of people raised their hands and were like, "I'm in."

Pete: Yeah, that's so true. I feel a bit like you. I've seen and been part of communities where these games go down, and I'm like, "I'm just going to opt out of that."

Jen: Yep.

Pete: But it's so, yeah, I don't know what the...there's a tension in trying to balance both, "Can I be super clear that what I might do is probably not true of what everyone will do? My response to a game is going to be different to someone else's response to a game, so not to rule something out if I think it's a bad idea." But by the same token, to also get clear on, "How might I react when something like that is communicated to me? And is there something I could learn from that particular question?"

Jen: So one of the things I've been trying to sort of get my head around is, what is so motivating about the gamification piece of it? In this case, they're not really competing against each other. Because there is a winner, but it's randomized. So, I think there are a couple things. One of which is, building a career as an actor in New York City can be such a slog. And even though the acting itself is so joy-filled, the actual day-to-day, "How do I piece all of this together to get the results I want," can be so high-stress and so draining, that adding a touch of whimsy and fun and joy to the part that usually doesn't have the joy, I think, is a real turn on.

Pete: Yeah, levity. I love that. Yeah, I mean, it undoubtedly releases dopamine in one's brain when, especially, I'm thinking about Bingo. Bingo, to me, is like, you know, for the people that like lists out there (like me), and you have your to do list and you get to cross stuff off, it's so satisfying. Bingo is like a giant version of that. So I feel like there's a little dopamine hit, every time I would be able to cross something off. And that would be so motivating and fun for me, not because it's, "I beat everyone else," but because it's rewarding and fun for me. Like there's some sort of intrinsic motivation you're tapping in to, I think, which, you're right, is possibly to do with the fact that we all take ourselves so seriously sometimes, especially when it relates to our career.

Jen: Yeah. And the other piece of it, I think, is that, at least with the clients I'm working with, they put all of this work in toward a desired outcome, and that outcome is literally entirely out of their hands. Like, they don't get to make any of those decisions. And in this case, they're putting in lots of effort for a desired outcome, and if they do the work that they want to do, they'll get to say, "Bingo!"

Pete: Oh, this is good. This is good. It feels like an aha moment to me. I feel like what you're doing is, you are rewarding and incentivizing the process.

Jen: The process. Yes, yes, yes.

Pete: That the Outcome, like you described in the context of a Broadway career, is so outside of your control. So we talk a lot about, "Okay. So knowing that, what can you control? How can you increase the probability or the likelihood of getting that outcome that you can't control? Well, you have to have a process that you feel pretty good about. It is pushing you in the direction that would enable you to possibly end up on the stage that you want to end up on, recognizing you can't guarantee it." So there's an element of, "Here is my process, that I can control." But inherent in most people's processes is a lack of reward for outcome or a lack of feedback, because we're like, "I don't know if this process is even doing anything or getting me anywhere." "How can I acknowledge that, or reward that, or make that have an outcome," which I think is what you did. The outcome is, "Bingo!"

Jen: Wow, Pete. I had not thought of this before, but you're right. So much of what we are rewarded for is product. And in this case, they're being rewarded for process.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: Woah. I hadn't put that together. Gamify the process.

Pete: Yeah, gamify the process. And in doing so, like you mentioned (just to like go back to what you said, which I thought was really rich), is like, "Find joy, or find fun, or find levity in that process, because that's all we have." Like the process itself, even if you get the Outcome, the thing that is going to live on, the thing that is going to remain in your control is a process of some description. So why wouldn't you want to make that fun and enjoyable, and have some levity and some whimsy? Why wouldn't you want to play more Bingo, everybody?

Jen: Right? Yeah, there's that famous quote (I don't know who said it), "It's the journey, not the destination."

Pete: I so agree. And like, this is like the randomest throwback. That quote that you just said, that we don't even know who to attribute to (which, we will and put in the Box O' Goodies), it reminded me of this famous-ish best-selling fiction book in Australia. And I say "famous-ish" because, you know, in the confines of Australia which is a small market compared to America, I don't know if this book made it there. But it was this fiction book called All Our Shimmering Skies by Trent Dalton. And I read this entire fiction book, it helped reinvigorate..."I read an entire fiction book," like I won a medal.

Jen: Gamify that.

Pete: But it helped reinvigorate an interest in fiction, for me. And I wrote down this one quote, which I literally just scurried to run over to my bookshelf to find my notepad to pull out this quote, because I think it speaks to what you just said, which is (Molly is the main character in this book), "Molly knows the secret to a long walk: Never think about the destination. Just think about the air in your lungs, the motion of your arms and legs. There is a rhythm to it. And once you have found it, that rhythm can tick tock through time forever. The more you take, the more you leave behind: footsteps. Don't think about the destination. Think about the walk."

Jen: Mmm.

Pete: I mean, I just love the quote because it's a descriptive way, a fictional, fun, descriptive way of describing what you said, which is...when I go for a walk with Ollie, which I do every afternoon, when we walk around the park for like forty-five minutes, I'm not walking because of the destination. Because the destination is my house. I end up where I started.

Jen: Right.

Pete: I'm walking because the process is of us going for a walk. The walk itself, the pointing out the trees and stopping to swing on the playground, that's the thing. That's the part of it that I enjoy so much, which I think is what Trent Dalton was getting at with his book and I think is what you're getting at, is, "Can you find rhythm? Can you find joy? Can you find levity and fun in the walk, in the process, without being so obsessively attached to the Outcome and putting one's success or fulfillment or joy at the behest of having to achieve that Outcome?"

Jen: So Pete, I did not clear this with you before I'm about to say it, but I'm about to put a challenge, then, out to our listeners. Because, as I mentioned, The Career Collective is an ongoing membership, which means every single month, I'm going to have to come up with a new game.

Pete: Oh, great. Bingo.

Jen: So listeners, would you please write in some games that you like? Monopoly, Bingo, Pin The Tail On The Donkey, whatever it might be, because that might spark an idea. And whoever sends in the game that is going to become the next month Career Collective game, you are going to get a shout out right here on The Long and The Short Of It. That'll be your prize.

Pete: I love it. Alright, let's gamify the podcast itself. And that is The Long and The Short Of It.