How we gamified challenges to align our team.

A few years back our net profit was slowly declining each quarter.

We tried the usual things like looking at wages and product costs and adjusting pricing.

It kinda worked but only masked the real problem…

The reality was, that we were operating really inefficiently.

But simply asking the team to work harder and faster for the fun of it sounded ridiculous.

(although I did try)

I also didn’t feel like being the a-hole that walked around with an iron fist shouting at people. 

That kind of culture isn’t what I’m shooting for… 

It was around then that I remembered a part of the Scaling Up book about quarterly themes.

A way of getting the whole team to move as one unit and achieve a shared goal. 

Even though it sounded too good to be true, we decided to give it a try.

What happened was pretty remarkable, so today I wanted to share it with you:

The case study the book used was a waste management company called the City Bin Co.

They were using themes for their quarterly objectives to make them more fun and easier to implement. 

The founder, Gene Browne, began by asking:

“What is the single most important thing going on in the business in the next 90 days” and then built a theme around it.

They came up with “Life Begins At 40” to raise profitability while recovering from the recession. 

Their goal was to increase the company’s profits by $40k per month through recurring revenue or savings. 

All employees were encouraged to submit ideas to raise cash or cut costs. 

So... We ripped the whole idea off and applied it to our efficiency problem. 

We named it One Hot Minute. 

(Yes, from The Red Hot Chilli Peppers)

The idea was for everyone in the organisation to find a way to save at least ONE minute per day so we could get more done in less time.

Ie continue growing without onboarding loads of people and still maintain quality and culture.

We doubled down on the enthusiasm and focused our daily briefings and high-fives around the progress each team was making towards saving minutes.

We gamified it. 

And soon... momentum started to build.  

We printed One Hot Minute notepads like this to capture ideas:

And had a giant thermometer that looked like this to capture all of the hours saved:

Some of the best ideas we got were things like:

• Workstation redesigns to minimise the number of steps taken.
• Staff coffee ordering app to limit wait times for staff coffee.
• Processes and workflows overhauled.
• Product lines deleted.
• Shorter meetings.

But the coolest thing was that it transformed what would have been a typical corporate discussion about saving money, into something that every person was happy to work on. 

It brought us together because it was fun.

And that’s what you’re shooting for when trying to align people. 

Here’s how to implement it yourself:

Step 1: ONE PROBLEM

Pick a challenge that will solve your biggest problem that ALL of your team can contribute to solving. 

(Ours was productivity) 

Step 2: ONE ACTION

Pick a specific action that every team member can take rather than leaving it open.

(Ours was counting minutes)

Step 3: ONE MEASURABLE

Pick a meaningful target to measure.

A number, dollar value, saving, sales target, etc.

(Ours was 10000 minutes)

Step 4: HAM IT UP

Lean into the theme. Get shirts made. Create bad graphics. Make a mascot. Even Play a bad theme song as you start every meeting. The key to getting it to stick is to raise a smile and make it fun.

(Ours was One Hot Minute)

Step 5: REWARDS

Create level 1, 2, and 3 rewards for achieving different goals.

Some companies send their team on holidays, others send gifts.

(We chose to go to dinner)

Pro Tip:

Record it so you can do a retrospective on the progress your team has made.

And remember to shout out people's contributions along the way. 

That’s it!

One simple way to use gamification to get your whole team working together to solve a common challenge.

I hope it helps!