Screw the Leaderboard

SCREW THE LEADERBOARD Jenna Deyle joins us from the Learning Rejects Conference to flip the bird at gamification.

Screw the Leaderboard

"Gamify" might be the most overused word in L&D. Put in a leaderboard, hand out swag for points, let's have a race to finish the courses! We celebrate somebody stacking points like it's a win, when really they probably clicked through to completion because they wanted the new branded mug.

Did they actually learn anything?

The more you "gamify" L&D, the less seriously people take it. But those leaderboards are onto something. They're trying to build competition into learning, and there's a place for that. Just not like that.

Sales has been doing this longer. And worse.

I spent 15 years in sales, and anybody who has worked in a sales org knows competition gets baked into everything, not just the training. But it was the same problem. Contests that rewarded the people already performing. Metrics that measured output, not improvement. The recognition went to whoever was already at the top of their game, so everybody at the bottom blew it off and barely participated.

Flip it

What if we flipped that on its head? What if we married the two ideas: real-world competition with L&D and coaching built in?

Some of the best learning I've ever witnessed came out of a sales competition with no real customer stakes. Roleplay scenarios built off real customer examples. A quick 30-minute training before each round on exactly what they'd be judged on. Coaching and "play tape review" after every round.

Even the most experienced employees can gain value out of this situation. I once observed a twenty year employee walk into the final round of judging to the surprise judge, an executive of the company.  This employee thought he could show up and wing it based on his experience and instead he crashed and burned. And he knew it.

So what did he do? The next time he had the chance to compete against all 120 of his peers in a mandatory role play contest he worked his ass off and took second place overall. He learned from his mistake and he told me confidently that he also was now practicing before he walked into a customer - he never wanted to be surprised and unprepared again.

Even better, make the judges people they're not used to working with. Instead of sitting across from their own manager, they're sitting across from the next department's manager. Make it to the championship round and maybe they're in front of an executive who's going to remember their name for the rest of their career.

Objections and curveballs get thrown at them the whole way through and they have to react on their feet. The best part? They get to fail somewhere safe, and then somebody tells them what they could have done better.

Why it has to be uncomfortable

Most people are going to resist roleplay at first, especially in front of peers or leadership. I get it.

I'd rather stumble in front of a customer who doesn't know the details of my job than in front of a peer I have to see at the coffee pot tomorrow.

But those stumbles are where the learning happens. And from the company's side, that learning shouldn't cost dollars in the field.

Make it a tradition

Want to take it a step further? Make it annual. Tie it to your annual team meeting and make a really big deal about the winner. Give them a traveling trophy to display at their desk for the next year, then let them sit as a finalist judge the next time around.

And when people exit the competition, have them self-assess their performance. Hand that assessment back to them next year so they remember where they were weak and what to work on.

This isn't just a sales thing

The format is proven for sales teams, but think about who else has to perform live in front of another human. The call center rep taking calls from irate customers. The leader who's supposed to be using that coaching framework you've taught them three times. Tech support diagnosing a problem remotely. Anywhere two people have to interface, and one of them has a framework to learn and actually use, roleplay works.

Build competition into a fun, structured, repeatable event and you get a learning tool employees actually look forward to.

Screw the digital leaderboard. I want the branded shirt that says I won the annual roleplay competition. And learned something in the process.

Jenna Deyle is the owner of Level 3 Sales Coaching where she offers sales consulting and training services for B2B teams. Level 3 is reference to measuring behavioral impact of training and that is where she puts her focus, real experience-based sales training that actually changes how a team and their manager perform back on the job. She lives in the Kansas City area with her husband and one-year old daughter and is an active member of the community.