Gamification - A Lesson for all

When the lockdown happened, Nandika and I installed a game on our mobile. just to put things in perspective, the online gaming industry is estimated to reach 200 billion dollars by 2023. During these times, 44% of online population was playing games. The people who were hooked to online games, spend on an average of 3 hours every week on the game. About 70% of people who played games, spent some time on the games, daily - and we were no different.

Whoa. With this information, we tried to justify our act by ensuring that the game will polish our intelligence when we play it. But what was destined to happen, will happen. We spent sleepless nights playing the game to get more points. We used those points in the game ultimately. When we lost we were sad, when we won, ecstatic. Similar to the verse in geeta which tells us : 

तुम क्या लाए थे, जो तुमने खो दिया ? तुमने क्या पैदा किया था, जो नाश हो गया ? न तुम कुछ लेकर आए थे, जो कुछ लिया यही से लिया । जो कुछ दिया यही दिया । जो लिया इसी (भगवान) से लिया । जो दिया, इसी को दिया । खाली हाथ आए थे, खाली हाथ जाओगे । जो आज तुम्हारा है, कल किसी और का था, परसों किसी और का होगा । तुम इसे अपना समझ कर मगन हो रहे हो । बस यही प्रसन्नता दुखो का कारण है ।

We earned more and more coins (for god knows what). There was nothing we brought to the game and nothing we were going to take away from it. The more we played, the more difficult the levels became. We learnt what Tom Sawyer had learnt - 

Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it – namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. 

Making the points more and more difficult to attain, we got further hooked to the game, when one fine day both Nandika and I decided to delete the game from our mobile. It was eating away our entire day without any tangible benefits. Nandika, was now exploring more utilitarian games and came across a Typing tutor. Learning typing in todays world is an amazingly boring job. The animation and gamification of the activity made it interesting. To make it better, giving away of accolades and telling where u stand in the country made the difference and attracted her interest.

While she was running around to get accolades it made me think, about the craving or underlying need of getting those accolades. Why do I want to play games? For me, it de-stresses me, makes me happy. Winning games, makes me feel heroic. The sense of achievement makes me thrilled. This makes it an instant mood lifter. It keeps you in a blissful state.

So it happened, during these times we were slightly worried about Nandika's screen time. Spending a lot of time on screen, left her with less time to do other physical jobs and activities. She loved watching videos and Byjus videos. Although all educational and exploratory in nature, we wished she did a little more physical work as well. My husband Malay has a solution to every problem. He thought of an experiment to derive some benefits from this feverishness. He created a game with Nandika. 

She would get 5-10 and 15 points on doing every activity that she does during the day. these activities included reading a book, taking dictation, helping with house hold chores, eating in time and finishing her homework in time. Every activity that she loved doing and that was supposed to be on her scheduled, fetched her points. Getting points on attending to her regular dance classes, yoga and meditation were also a part of the game. There were no negative points. She could accumulate as many points as she wanted. At the end of the week, those points could either be redeemed for cash or converted to screen time. She could use as much screen time as she collected during the week.

SCREEN TIME ! This put things in a different light. 

Before we could understand what was happening, Nandika was running from pillar to post to collect points. All the pending home work was completed, Reading Writing started happening and the hobby classes started. To top it all, she was helping around with the household chores. I was overwhelmed. 

Collecting points is not easy. Not because you need to work to earn them, but, to accumulate them, you need a lot of maths to keep adding the points. What else could I have asked for! Even maths was being practised and polished. Thanks to GAME BABA, things started off well.

She searched for opportunities to help me and earn points. Did all she could to earn more and more. I started feeling guilty. Was I not exploiting the child to get work done ? I voiced my feelings to Malay who explained to me that the newness of the activity is making her do all this with so much vigour. He said that it is only time, when this becomes another old game and the excitement will start withering away. 

I seemed even more worried now. What will happen when the excitement dies out ? To which he simply replied, By then she would have got used to performing these tasks in her routine life.  With this he plugged in my brain and switched on my bulb. 

Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. And this would help to understand why constructing artificial flowers or performing on a tread-mill is work, while rolling ten-pins or climbing Mont Blanc is only amusement.

We realized this great law of human action through this little game. This little game with Nandika, made me think, If god said, u will get +ve points for doing good in life and -ve for doing wrong, which will ultimately define our happiness in this life and future ones. Will we comply? Will we run from pole to pillar to collect good points for happiness and satisfied life? Yes, Definitely. As you sow, so shall you reap. Our Karmas are getting accumulated and every karma will either be rewarded or punished. What type of Karmas would u like to do ?

But the game has to be played in true spirit - After all, Bhagwad Geeta says - 

कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन । मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भुर्मा ते संगोऽस्त्वकर्मणि ॥

You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of action. Never consider yourself to be the cause of the results of your activities, and never be attached to not doing your duty. - Bhagavad Gita, Chapter II, Verse 47

Management Lesson - Accepting your mistakes

Have you ever made a mistake ? I often do. It's a natural with me. Mistake is defined as "An Act or judgement that is misguided or wrong".  It definitely means that the action was wrong. But no where it says that the act was intentionally done. This means, if I didn't do a mistake intentionally, i should get an opportunity to accept it, apologize for it and rectify it if possible. 

We cannot hold still. As human beings ought to do some work. Take some action. Those actions maybe be good or bad. Some intentional, some unintended. When unintended actions hurt others, bring misery to thoughts, people or work, it becomes important for us to accept them and work out a rectification plan. What seems to be very difficult is the fact that whenever I make a mistake i need to realize my mistake. I realize that something wrong has happened and that realization is the first step towards acceptance. 

Accepting a mistake essentially means that I was wrong. How can I accept that I was wrong ? My Large Sized Ego comes in between my thoughts, awareness and acceptance. It tells me, " How can I be wrong? Why should I accept that this was my mistake ? It was someone else's mistake. I didn't do anything wrong. Even if something wrong has happened, it has nothing to do with me." On and On.  The most difficult thing in life is acceptance, but it helps solve problems that are destined to arise if not done so.

Once in College we were working on an assignment and it being a very boring assignment, my partner Tanu and I ran away to a party. The net result was that it affected the project adversely and we could not finish in time. A Mistake. Yes. Grave. We were reprimanded by the professor Narayan sir, which made us realize the gravity of the situation. The only saving grace was that we accepted our mistake and apologized. We felt sorry for our actions. The professor graciously pardoned us and left us with a warning of not repeating the same mistake again. He forgave our little act and things quickly came back to normal. Had we not accepted our mistake, a small act would have become an ego battle between the insignificant us and the professor community at large which would have led to serious consequences.

Corporate life is no different. When we act on situations, some actions will be right and some wrong. Making mistakes is not wrong. But what is wrong is not realizing, not accepting them. Once a team member Rashi, was assigned a launch project to work on. She prepared proposals, identified distributors, took activation permissions and did a lot of activities to complete a pilot of the launch. What she missed was to prepare a concept note and take approval. Due to the miss she did not get approval of the schemes and landed up all mixed up in her launch. The project did not proceed as expected and her review with her seniors yielded unacceptable results. 

Although Rashi had put in lot of effort her bosses felt that she did not put in enough efforts. They did not even know what work was done and why the project did not proceed as per plan. Also when discussing with her, she kept on saying that she has worked very hard and it's not her mistake that the project did not succeed. Her seniors felt that she was not ready to accept her mistake and demoted her for delivering sub standard performance. The only reason being, she did not accept where she faltered. She was not ready to take the responsibility of the mistake and blamed it on system and not getting approvals.

The major challenge was the ego issue between the boss and her. The boss took offence on the point that he tried to help her with whatever suggestions and solutions possible, but Rashi did not take enough initiative to take things to conclusion. As if this was not enough, she blamed the entire failure to not getting approvals from the boss. On the other hand, Rashi was not ready to accept her mistake. She kept repeating that she had worked very hard and did her best.

This brought the situation to a deadlock. Things went from bad to worse. The two people who were working on the project were not ready to cooperate and collaborate. Rashi found out another job for herself and moved out of the organization. Since the project did not move ahead as desired, the boss was given another responsibility and he moved on. In the end, it was the organization which Lost. A Small mistake, a little disagreement, which could have been corrected by acceptance, took things to extreme and to a point of no return. 

A little slip, which could have been corrected by careful thought and acceptance, made matters worse. Someone else came in and completed the project. After all, work will be done. Either you do it, or someone else will.

An alteration in the situation was, that a mentor stepped in, she explained the situation to both the parties and brought them to a point of amicable working conditions. Both the team members took responsibility of their own work and concluded the project well. After all, ALL IS WELL, THAT ENDS WELL.