Three Secrets of the Video Game Designer

Extracted 09AUG2011 from http://blogs.hbr.org/hbsfaculty/2011/08/three-secrets-of-the-video-gam.html

Managers may be unaware of how important progress is to human motivation, but it's one of the first secrets that every good video game designer learns... Truly effective video game designers know how to create a sense of progress for players within all stages of a game. Truly effective teachers do this in the classroom for their students. Truly effective managers do the same for their subordinates... three particularly effective techniques:

Keep everyday progress on your mental agenda. Of course, before you can mark progress, people have to actually make progress. So the first step is to support progress every day, by creating a "climate of attention."...

Find small wins even in setbacks. ...leaders created a climate of psychological safety, where people didn't fear being punished if they admitted mistakes or encountered failure in trying a new idea....

Mark progress in many ways, large and small. ..Usually, the overall progress was small, but team leaders helped the scientists and technicians see how they were moving forward on their pathway...