What If Your Employees Don't Win The Game?

by Bill Collier

Most companies use games and contests to get employees fired up and to drive results. Who hasn’t run a sales contest or offered an award for perfect attendance?

At Great Game of Business, we call these “Mini-Games.” They’re short-term, intensely focused, rapid-improvement campaigns that affect a change, correct a weakness or pursue an opportunity. Like any game or sport, there is a goal, a scoreboard and a reward for winning.
A well-designed business game can be energizing, fun, educational and exciting. But what if you get to the end and you miss the target?

A business owner I work with was recently in that very situation. His particular game had the goal of reducing utility costs over a 90-day period, which didn’t happen. To avoid his team’s disappointment, he desperately wanted to pay the reward anyway and asked me for advice.My feedback wasn’t necessarily what he wanted to hear, but in the end he agreed with the advice.

I had to tell him that if you give the prize anyway, you’re training the team that a miss is as good as a win and to expect something every time you run a game regardless of the outcome.

It’s better to have a postgame meeting, review the results together and have a discussion about what went right and what went wrong (if anything – just because you didn’t win doesn’t mean something went wrong.) It is possible the target was too optimistic, and you can discuss that.

Did everyone really take the game seriously and do everything possible to reduce utilities? Did they encourage each other to turn off lights, close windows, etc.? If not, it should not be a surprise that they didn’t win.

If someone suggests, “It’s not our fault we didn’t win, so we should get the prize anyway,” that’s an opportunity to talk about the fact that it’s also not the company’s fault. But in reality, it’s not about “fault.” It’s about creating a win for the company and a win for the employees. Let’s learn together from this experience and do another game, perhaps on another target or maybe go after utilities again.

My advice to him – and to all businesses embarking on using games and contests – is this: With the first few games, pick easy targets to virtually ensure a win. Don’t share that info with the folks, but do it to let them get the feel of a win under their belts and to show you’re serious about awarding the prizes when they win. Every time do a postgame analysis with the team: What did we learn? What can we continue to do better going forward, even after the game is over? If everyone involved doesn’t learn something about business from the experience, you’re leaving money on the table.

Get your game on and improve your business!


Bill Collier is the St. Louis-area coach for The Great Game of Business. He works with organizations that want to improve financial results, engage their employees and create a winning culture. He can be reached at 314-221-8558, GreatGame.com/stl, GGOBSTL.com or billcollier@greatgame.com.