What's the Alternative?

Understanding Baselines

Baselines establish what falls in or out of a target zone. In baseball, lines determine if a hit is fair, allowing the player to run to first base. Other sports use baselines more restrictively—play ends when a ball crosses the boundary in tennis, basketball, hockey, soccer, and football.

At work, can you easily identify baselines? Do they reinforce universally agreed upon objectives and rules of engagement, or do they merely substitute performance targets and incentives that fail to align with broader goals?

The Bank of America retail account opening incentives demonstrate this principle: copying game rules without establishing proper baselines creates disaster. Goals and point-scoring rules alone are insufficient—everyone uses baselines.

Perception and Visual Language

Our brains unconsciously match sensory input to patterns in memory, perceiving groupings before recognizing individual elements. As Steven Brady noted: "if you want to change someone's perception, don't try to change it all at once. Find a way to get them to see an alternative. Then work to strengthen that alternative view."

Groupings persist in memory. For workplace gamification to succeed, it needs stronger connection to broader perception—the generally understood field of play.

Work and Play Share Common Ground

Work and play share many performance attributes:

• Both require commitment
• Both use strategy
• Both inspire continuous improvement
• Both celebrate success

The key difference: sports behaves more consistently than work at the group level, yet individual attributes and activities prove remarkably alike.

Practical Exercises to Transform Work Into Play

1. Turn objectives into riddles - Begin your next review with a riddle framing your presentation more engagingly
2. Re-imagine your project plan - Visualize it as a playful experience like an adventure safari or celebration
3. Sketch current processes as games - Take 10 minutes to actively scribble your tasks as if playing a childhood game

These exercises shift perspective by activating capabilities that unconsciously awaited activation.