Game Time

As the inimitable Yogi Berra once said “If you don't know where you're going, you might not get there.” I couldn’t agree more Yogi.

Recently, my attention was captured by study results from the Medical Research Council's Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge, England. The study looked at the effect of computer-based “brain training” games available on platforms ranging from personal computers to personal communication devices. The bottom line was that these games had no measurable effect on brain performance such as general memory or IQ.

Developing games and simulations for online learning is one of my passions, so I was initially quite discouraged by this information. However, as I looked into the study further, I was reassured that I have not been wasting learners’ time with learning games. Quite the opposite, in fact, is supported by the same study.

Participants played computer games based on commercially available games that promise improved brain power. IQs were measured before and after the study with no significant difference noted between the two tests. However, what caught my attention was that, while the participants did not get smarter overall, their ability to play the individual games improved notably.

What this tells me is that, like everything else about developing effective training, the key is identifying proper goals and objectives. If a learning game focuses on the specific knowledge or skill being taught, learners will (with repetition), get better at the game and thus more skillful or knowledgeable about the topic – even if the act of playing the game does not turn them into IQ brainiacs.

Games can be a very powerful tool for learning. They can also be effective at directing learner focus to specific skills and knowledge. The important thing is to be sure that the games target the proper objectives. That way, you’ll know where you’re going – and you’ll be able to measure that you’ve arrived.

Getting Employee Engagement Back on Course

Many organizations were successful in navigating through the changing economy in 2009and more were not. If you are unsure about how your organization did, you may want to ask the following questions to diagnose the success of your navigation. Have you revised your organizational strategy and mission as a result of the changing economy? How would you describe the current culture in your organization? Did your company value the employees who you had to lay-off? Was the HR budget cut significantly? Do you still have a training and development strategy?

The 2009 Gallup Employee Engagement Index reported that only 33 percent of workers are engaged in their jobs, 49 percent are not engaged, and 18 percent are actively disengaged. In other words, 67 percent of our workforce are not engaged or actively disengaged. I don’t know about you, but that is a major concern for our employees and organizations today as we compete in the global economy. What happened to valuing our human capital or better said our people that we lead? How about our bottom-line? Gallup researchers, who base the Employee Engagement Index on a survey of nearly 42,000 randomly selected employees, estimate that disengaged workers cost U.S. businesses as much as $350 billion a year.

If your organization did not navigate successfully through the changing economy of 2009, here are some suggestions for getting back on course in 2010:

1. Send out a short survey to your employees to measure employee engagement. Be sure to include both quantitative and qualitative items for measurement. Simply use Survey Monkey or Zoomerang to administer the survey.

2. Align employee goals to the overall organizational strategy. Make sure they are SMART goals.

3. Communicate your mission so all employees know their purpose. The more the mission is communicated, the more likely everyone knows how they contribute to the organization on a daily basis.

4. Ensure that HR is strategic and has a seat at the table.

5. Encourage leaders to manage change and communicate their vision to employees. It is a changing global economy and employees need to know what changes are coming. If your organization isn’t changing and adapting that should be a concern.

6. Provide training and development opportunities. Employees report being more engaged when their organization invests in them. You can invest in your employees by providing on-the-job training, classroom and online learning, mentoring, lunch and learns, and a plethora of other opportunities.

7. Manage performance by setting individual employee SMART goals and providing ongoing coaching and feedback throughout the year. You will also want to document, adjust and communicate performance. There should never be any performance surprises during the mid-year or year-end evaluation. Another key to managing performance is to give employees new job assignments that keep them engaged and empower them to succeed as they learn new skills.

8. Celebrate all of your wins!

More Talk About Culture

My husband and I went to visit a friend this week at work. He is the head chemist in a laboratory and wanted to give us a tour, talk about his research and discuss the exciting things the organization has going on. He has been there for nearly two years and seems so happy and so comfortable, he fits into the culture.

How is it that a talented, smart individual fits in one place and not another? It really comes down to culture. This friend is very casual and while he works hard, he does so with a laid back attitude that would not work everywhere. You can understand a group or company’s culture through their expectations for employees, approach to serving customers and how they promote their way of doing business.

Culture shapes our attitude and identity and we can be a part of many different cultures. I have several groups of friends and there is a unique culture with all of them, my family has a culture, my neighborhood has a culture and there is of course a unique culture at work.

It is difficult in some cases to describe a company’s culture because we are so immersed in it but we can try by answering the following questions:

1. How would you define the culture of your organization?
2. Have you hired people based only on skill, not on fit, then wondered six months later why they weren’t working out?
3. Do you lead people based on your personal culture not the culture of the organization?
4. How do we take culture into account with our leadership styles?
5. How do we create a culture within our organization that keeps people engaged and excited about their work?

Answering these questions is vital to embracing, creating or changing organizational culture.