Few months back I had an opportunity to attend one our customers “Training and Supplier trade show”. The event is held annually so that all the buyers and managers get to meet all the suppliers and see their offering and collaborate to find better solutions.  They must have realised long time ago, for a event like this it is hard to make everyone work seriously with their vendors. For most people in these events it is a break from the routine, free travel at company’s expense free food and drinks! especially the free drinks . Working on serious issues like a cheap alternative for current service from a vendor is last thought on anyone’s mind.

But the event was not even close to this, surprisingly everyone was very seriously involved and they were enjoying it both the Company’s employees and also the vendors. The mantra for this was an ingenious way of integrating game mechanics into the purpose of the event. Concept was simple there were teams of  which consisted certain business units and randomly chosen vendors.It had very common game elements like points, leader boards and Big Prizes.Vendors had to come up with 3 points defining how they help the company through their service and products. Employees got points by going to each booth finding out what are these 3 points and remembering them. More booths you visit more points your team gets, which was continuously updated on the leader board. The winning team got an actual NASCAR race car body shell and bragging rights for the whole year. It did not matter how valuable the points are or what you will do with car body shell, everyone was motivated to do exactly what the event intended to do: Interact and know more about your vendors, find their offerings and often quest for more points led to discovery of new vendors or services.

Games have very powerful effect on motivating people. A simple but well designed game can keep people engaged and aligned towards the goal. I remember a year ago when we started a 5S reward system it were these same elements of points, leader board and a prize that kept people motivated facilitating change in effective manner.