How To Design A Funner Workplace

What makes people addicted to slot machines and video games? <ul> <li> The intermittent rewards that come from playing them.</li> </ul> Your brain gets a rush of dopamine every time a slot machine tells you you've won, or when a game gives you a sweet prize from doing certain tasks. <ol> <li>HEY I JUST WON COINS FROM SLOTS</li> <li>I WANT THAT WINNING FEELING AGAIN</li> <li>I KEEP PLAYING</li> </ol> <h2>The Dopamine Rush</h2> On the surface, drugs, video games, and slot machines don't addict people; instead, the rush in more dopamine rushing through people's brains addicts them to those activities. <ul> <li>People scour the internet aimlessly looking for that next quick fix, giving them the increased dopamine rush, and driving them to explore the Internet further.</li> </ul> Yet, doing activities that provide them no long-term benefit ultimately destroys their morale; people aren't any happier after browsing the Web aimlessly or playing the slots until they come back to those activities. You get a sustainably happier and more effective workforce when you combine the dopamine rush with long-term benefits that help company/customers/world. <h2>How to Make Work Fun</h2> If the dopamine rush happens infrequently, we move onto other activities that can give us that rush (e.g. employees browsing the Web instead of working on a customer's project). DANG THIS BORING LETS DO SOMETHING ELSE To get a more engaged workforce, design your company around intermittent rewards for doing things that rock the #@$#@ out your company, your customers, and the world; some examples: <ul> <li> prizes for getting happy letters from customers/vendors/team-members</li> <li> ribbons for saving $X in costs</li> <li> points for finding ways to cut energy costs</li> <li> badges for helping customers win</li> </ul> The repeated rush in dopamine for every win fuels them to keep doing those beneficial activities. You start channeling the dopamine rush to good things.  The world wins. BAM <h2>Channel dopamine for the good.</h2> 2010-01-29T06:31:45-08:00 true 929 how-to-design-a-funner-workplace

2010-01-29T06:31:45-08:00