[Music]
have you ever experienced the glazed
eyeball syndrome you know when you’re
attempting to explain something to
someone your friend your husband your
boss your kid and they’re just not
getting it and don’t ever experience
that I have to a few times in fact but
there was this one particular time that
when I experienced it it took me on a
new path and it’s profoundly changed the
way that I work the way I play in the
way that I hate others so about five
years ago I was leading a training with
a group of leaders from a range of
different industries and I could feel
the energy in the room was split on this
one side people were mesmerized and
captivated and so enthralled geeking out
on systems processes all this real-time
data and then there was the other half
and I could see out of the corner of my
eye two people in the back having this
private chat completely oblivious to the
content I was sharing with the room and
as I’m walking towards them I see this
woman on the end of the aisle and she is
checking Facebook I’m thinking oh god
this is not good and this glazed eyeball
thing was just hitting me from multiple
directions so I talked to people
afterwards and I get comments like that
training was really hard that was
stressful that pushed me outside of my
comfort zone or my favorite that’s just
not my thing
which is corporate code for I’m bored my
heart sank at the disconnection and the
disengagement that they were
experiencing and I left that day feeling
more than a little deflated and confused
and a few consecutive times this
happened I had a meltdown which probably
looked a little bit more like this
I should say at that at this time I was
teaching trainings using business
simulations so before I built my company
I used to be a professional dancer and I
said dad sir I learned how to dance by
dancing let’s face it we’re not ever
gonna learn a skill like dancing sitting
on the couch watching So You Think You
Can Dance just not gonna happen you know
when you learn how to ride a bike for
the first time he didn’t read the manual
and write in the bike just got on the
bike right so when I left that world and
started working with athletes with
business leaders and training them on
the psychology of elite performance and
made total sense for me to train them in
a way that they were experiencing these
skills and not just learning them
through case discussions and lectures
simulations are a great way to train in
a safe environment without the risk of
making those mistakes that you might do
in a crisis situation a war zone for
example they’re a great standalone in
certain environments pilots use flight
simulators successfully since World War
one medical students trained on patient
simulators so they didn’t go out and
endanger a human’s life when I was
working with a trapeze artist it’s like
dis lay where safety is the top priority
let me total sense that we use
simulation to train them and it’s been
used in a multitude of other industries
with advances in technology which had me
reflecting and wandering in businesses
and industries where employees lives are
not at risk is adaptation necessary and
so this let me on a path of extensive
research and what I found is that I
wasn’t the only one experiencing this I
have friends and they say things like oh
they’re not just they’re not your
audience or you can’t please everyone
but the more and more people that I talk
to on the inside I started to realize
that this wasn’t just my problem this
was a crisis that was being addressed
and being faced by corporate world at
large did you know that 67% of the
workforce are disengaged at this time
that’s two-thirds
all the workforce that are just doing
the bare minimum to get by and a
significant percentage of them are just
so miserable like they are tearing down
everything that these engaged people are
building and they are ready to walk out
the door leaving the cash register open
America is at the top of her game
UK behind as usual I can say that
because I’m from there but the sad
reality is it’s not a joke this is an
ugly downward spiral for everyone look
at the numbers look at Spain Italy
France at the bottom with 97%
disengagement the numbers are staggering
we add to that that US businesses last
year spent nineteen point six billion
dollars training their people we know
there’s a problem but they’re relying on
the old way of working to train their
people and wondering why things aren’t
happening the game has changed ladies
and gentlemen our data tells us that we
on average only retain about 25 percent
of new information that we hear and
there are some variations on that
depending on how important the
information is to us and so on but 25%
retention is equivalent to 68 billion
dollars that was wasted just last year
because of poor attention we are pouring
gas into a car that has a hole in the
tank call it the great training robbery
I wanted to do something about this and
the solution came to me one evening when
I was playing a board game with my
husband well laughing we’re joking we’re
having fun and at the end of the game I
said him so what did you learn and so
discussion followed and we started
reflecting on the lessons from the board
game and how they connected with his
role in the workplace here is a senior
sales executive at the time and that’s
when the light bulb went off this is the
missing dynamic in business simulations
we need more fun more play more games in
the working environment and so I set off
to integrate this
and I started to dig deeper into the
mechanics behind games and I found a
surprising statistic did you know that
the average male gamer is 35 years old
that the average female gamer is 44
years old these are not your
stereotypical kids unemployed living in
their parents basement these are adults
in full-time employment with a car and a
mortgage and there are 125 million
gamers in America has an interesting
thing that I learned about gaming – that
the designers have built in specific
leadership stars that we can take on
board that are so relevant to us as
leaders whether we’re a leader of one
just ourself or leader of many we’re
learning core principles such as win-win
there are some attrition ranking so if
we connected the dots we can now
consciously choose how we are going to
play and show up in the game of life and
I thought there’s got to be something to
this turns out there was some smart
forward-thinking leaders are now
utilizing the exact strategies that game
designers are using to hook their
players they’re using rewards badges
ranking scores competition nor these are
the strategy is to hook people to drive
engagement bill motivation it’s called
gamification Fitbit did a phenomenal job
of engaging their customers building
brand loyalty when they released their
app over sudden runners are getting
points for running for tracking their
activity they’re competing against each
other to reach the next level of
achievement they’re getting badges
written the next milestone or crushing
their next goal and now they’re
encouraged to share their successes on
social media which of course has
increased fitbit’s brand presence in the
marketplace and I thought that’s what we
need to do in the training environment
get more buzz going more loyalty more
engagement and our challenges that our
psychology
the thing that holds us back is we
equate games with fun and frivolous good
for the gaming world but not in a work
in a serious environment where
especially buttoned-up and i want to
change that give games their rightful
place as the driver in learning and
retention engagement creativity
innovation but we’ve disconnected with
that side of us that playful side do you
remember when you’re a kid I do I
remember my mom would take me to the
park and we I’d go play in the sandbox
or if I was a friends I’d roleplay
doctors nurses pirates princesses or my
favorite whereas spinning around like
Wonder Woman
as kids we do that we naturally engage
in games and play we’re creating these
make-believe scenarios as adults we
marvel at kids creativity and we wonder
how we lost ours this is the missing
piece and I started to now integrate
games and game mechanics into my
simulations
I call it dilation it’s the joining of
two words the word game and the inherit
fun and playfulness that comes with it
and the word simulation and the realism
associated with it I’d like to give you
an example of a gamble ation so that you
can see how the two connect together and
how it can serve you the gamm ulation is
called the perfect pizza and it was
conceived when I was vacationing in
Italy in Sardinia I was sitting in a
pizza parlor watching the guy behind the
counter so he’s tossing the dough
slapping on a marinara sauce sprinkling
the mozzarella pizzas going in the oven
and he’s repeating this process like
bang bang bang record time and I’m
watching him mesmerized and the speed
and the light goes off I need to create
a game ulation
that teaches employees how to build
systems for their businesses through
knocking out pizzas as many as they can
per hour
from this core idea I started to build
this game ulation out and it had
multiple layers so the theme is the
mayor of side
is telling people of the island that
business is booming he wants more pizza
parlors and so people are getting
together in teams and groups and they
allocate a CEO a CFO a director of
marketing me director of sales and so on
and the teams are competing with each
other to build the most profitable
business so just like any simulation any
real-life situation you’re gonna be
learning lessons like leadership market
differentiation branding how to
collaborate and communicate between
departments what to do in the marketing
guy doesn’t talk to the sales guy and
how do you deal with that breakdown and
communication while still keeping the
customers happy still driving revenue
for your business so just like real life
business just like a simulation the
difference and what made it a game is
the environment that I created now it’s
fun I’ve got music Italian music playing
people are transported to Italy as soon
as they walk into the room the deck or
the role play the costumes I show up is
the mayor of Sardinia demanding
accountability from people negotiating
their contracts but people are having
fun we’re bringing in pizza from the
outside from the local pizza place and
people are in this environment they feel
safe enough to take risks make decisions
that they wouldn’t normally do when
they’re selling their widget in the work
place if they’re in their boardroom and
they’re discussing the next strategy and
the next move they need to know what
they’re doing they need to know what
they’re talking about and they’re not
gonna take those kinds of risks but when
you’re making pizza and you’re in the
simulated gamified game you laid an
environment why not and so now they’re
learning things that pushing the
boundaries of what they’re capable of
and they are excited to walk out there
and test all this new cool stuff they’ve
learned so I’ve been following and
tracking over 200 trainees over the last
two years and here’s what I found the
engagement level was at 90 percent in
the room that’s almost triple the
engagement rate in America right now the
retention level within just a week with
that 80 percent you compare that eighty
percent to the twenty five which is our
average for traditional classroom style
learning and we can see the
transformation that happened but here’s
what’s really exciting
remember that sixty eight billion
dollars that we talked about there was
potentially wasted because of poor
attention last year
imagine if fifty four billion dollars of
that could have been saved just by using
gamma Latian as a training tool what
could that do for the landscape in
corporate America or for the world if
you’re wondering how you can implement
this I wanna share have developed about
forty five gang relations over the last
couple of years that there are three
core elements that you need and you need
all three the first is you’ve got to be
relevant the gang nation has to be
relevant to the problem that you want to
solve to the realism it’s got to
resemble some kind of business
environment that you are likely to
experience and three the reward there’s
got to be some built-in reward that is
engaging that is motivating people to
say yes I want to be a part of this and
when you have all three not just one or
two but all three you’ve got people in
the palm of your hand I want to leave
you with this i profoundly believe that
investing in our learning and our
development is gonna be key for us to be
able to step into the roles of tomorrow
but the learning is going to be done the
right way when we enter that sweet spot
that is game ulation now a driving
engagement we’re stimulating creativity
we’re firing a probability to think
outside the box and these are core
business needs for today and tomorrow’s
leaders when I found in my training that
I started using Jam elation I pretty
much eliminated those glazed eyeballs
whether people gravitated towards the
realism of a simulation or they love the
playfulness inherent in games I had them
all employees were happy businesses were
happy and I felt pretty good that I
enabled people to connect with their
inner child
so I invite you to embrace gamble ation
as the future of training and to share
this with others particularly those that
are familiar with that glazed eye
syndrome thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
have you ever experienced the glazed
eyeball syndrome you know when you’re
attempting to explain something to
someone your friend your husband your
boss your kid and they’re just not
getting it and don’t ever experience
that I have to a few times in fact but
there was this one particular time that
when I experienced it it took me on a
new path and it’s profoundly changed the
way that I work the way I play in the
way that I hate others so about five
years ago I was leading a training with
a group of leaders from a range of
different industries and I could feel
the energy in the room was split on this
one side people were mesmerized and
captivated and so enthralled geeking out
on systems processes all this real-time
data and then there was the other half
and I could see out of the corner of my
eye two people in the back having this
private chat completely oblivious to the
content I was sharing with the room and
as I’m walking towards them I see this
woman on the end of the aisle and she is
checking Facebook I’m thinking oh god
this is not good and this glazed eyeball
thing was just hitting me from multiple
directions so I talked to people
afterwards and I get comments like that
training was really hard that was
stressful that pushed me outside of my
comfort zone or my favorite that’s just
not my thing
which is corporate code for I’m bored my
heart sank at the disconnection and the
disengagement that they were
experiencing and I left that day feeling
more than a little deflated and confused
and a few consecutive times this
happened I had a meltdown which probably
looked a little bit more like this
I should say at that at this time I was
teaching trainings using business
simulations so before I built my company
I used to be a professional dancer and I
said dad sir I learned how to dance by
dancing let’s face it we’re not ever
gonna learn a skill like dancing sitting
on the couch watching So You Think You
Can Dance just not gonna happen you know
when you learn how to ride a bike for
the first time he didn’t read the manual
and write in the bike just got on the
bike right so when I left that world and
started working with athletes with
business leaders and training them on
the psychology of elite performance and
made total sense for me to train them in
a way that they were experiencing these
skills and not just learning them
through case discussions and lectures
simulations are a great way to train in
a safe environment without the risk of
making those mistakes that you might do
in a crisis situation a war zone for
example they’re a great standalone in
certain environments pilots use flight
simulators successfully since World War
one medical students trained on patient
simulators so they didn’t go out and
endanger a human’s life when I was
working with a trapeze artist it’s like
dis lay where safety is the top priority
let me total sense that we use
simulation to train them and it’s been
used in a multitude of other industries
with advances in technology which had me
reflecting and wandering in businesses
and industries where employees lives are
not at risk is adaptation necessary and
so this let me on a path of extensive
research and what I found is that I
wasn’t the only one experiencing this I
have friends and they say things like oh
they’re not just they’re not your
audience or you can’t please everyone
but the more and more people that I talk
to on the inside I started to realize
that this wasn’t just my problem this
was a crisis that was being addressed
and being faced by corporate world at
large did you know that 67% of the
workforce are disengaged at this time
that’s two-thirds
all the workforce that are just doing
the bare minimum to get by and a
significant percentage of them are just
so miserable like they are tearing down
everything that these engaged people are
building and they are ready to walk out
the door leaving the cash register open
America is at the top of her game
UK behind as usual I can say that
because I’m from there but the sad
reality is it’s not a joke this is an
ugly downward spiral for everyone look
at the numbers look at Spain Italy
France at the bottom with 97%
disengagement the numbers are staggering
we add to that that US businesses last
year spent nineteen point six billion
dollars training their people we know
there’s a problem but they’re relying on
the old way of working to train their
people and wondering why things aren’t
happening the game has changed ladies
and gentlemen our data tells us that we
on average only retain about 25 percent
of new information that we hear and
there are some variations on that
depending on how important the
information is to us and so on but 25%
retention is equivalent to 68 billion
dollars that was wasted just last year
because of poor attention we are pouring
gas into a car that has a hole in the
tank call it the great training robbery
I wanted to do something about this and
the solution came to me one evening when
I was playing a board game with my
husband well laughing we’re joking we’re
having fun and at the end of the game I
said him so what did you learn and so
discussion followed and we started
reflecting on the lessons from the board
game and how they connected with his
role in the workplace here is a senior
sales executive at the time and that’s
when the light bulb went off this is the
missing dynamic in business simulations
we need more fun more play more games in
the working environment and so I set off
to integrate this
and I started to dig deeper into the
mechanics behind games and I found a
surprising statistic did you know that
the average male gamer is 35 years old
that the average female gamer is 44
years old these are not your
stereotypical kids unemployed living in
their parents basement these are adults
in full-time employment with a car and a
mortgage and there are 125 million
gamers in America has an interesting
thing that I learned about gaming – that
the designers have built in specific
leadership stars that we can take on
board that are so relevant to us as
leaders whether we’re a leader of one
just ourself or leader of many we’re
learning core principles such as win-win
there are some attrition ranking so if
we connected the dots we can now
consciously choose how we are going to
play and show up in the game of life and
I thought there’s got to be something to
this turns out there was some smart
forward-thinking leaders are now
utilizing the exact strategies that game
designers are using to hook their
players they’re using rewards badges
ranking scores competition nor these are
the strategy is to hook people to drive
engagement bill motivation it’s called
gamification Fitbit did a phenomenal job
of engaging their customers building
brand loyalty when they released their
app over sudden runners are getting
points for running for tracking their
activity they’re competing against each
other to reach the next level of
achievement they’re getting badges
written the next milestone or crushing
their next goal and now they’re
encouraged to share their successes on
social media which of course has
increased fitbit’s brand presence in the
marketplace and I thought that’s what we
need to do in the training environment
get more buzz going more loyalty more
engagement and our challenges that our
psychology
the thing that holds us back is we
equate games with fun and frivolous good
for the gaming world but not in a work
in a serious environment where
especially buttoned-up and i want to
change that give games their rightful
place as the driver in learning and
retention engagement creativity
innovation but we’ve disconnected with
that side of us that playful side do you
remember when you’re a kid I do I
remember my mom would take me to the
park and we I’d go play in the sandbox
or if I was a friends I’d roleplay
doctors nurses pirates princesses or my
favorite whereas spinning around like
Wonder Woman
as kids we do that we naturally engage
in games and play we’re creating these
make-believe scenarios as adults we
marvel at kids creativity and we wonder
how we lost ours this is the missing
piece and I started to now integrate
games and game mechanics into my
simulations
I call it dilation it’s the joining of
two words the word game and the inherit
fun and playfulness that comes with it
and the word simulation and the realism
associated with it I’d like to give you
an example of a gamble ation so that you
can see how the two connect together and
how it can serve you the gamm ulation is
called the perfect pizza and it was
conceived when I was vacationing in
Italy in Sardinia I was sitting in a
pizza parlor watching the guy behind the
counter so he’s tossing the dough
slapping on a marinara sauce sprinkling
the mozzarella pizzas going in the oven
and he’s repeating this process like
bang bang bang record time and I’m
watching him mesmerized and the speed
and the light goes off I need to create
a game ulation
that teaches employees how to build
systems for their businesses through
knocking out pizzas as many as they can
per hour
from this core idea I started to build
this game ulation out and it had
multiple layers so the theme is the
mayor of side
is telling people of the island that
business is booming he wants more pizza
parlors and so people are getting
together in teams and groups and they
allocate a CEO a CFO a director of
marketing me director of sales and so on
and the teams are competing with each
other to build the most profitable
business so just like any simulation any
real-life situation you’re gonna be
learning lessons like leadership market
differentiation branding how to
collaborate and communicate between
departments what to do in the marketing
guy doesn’t talk to the sales guy and
how do you deal with that breakdown and
communication while still keeping the
customers happy still driving revenue
for your business so just like real life
business just like a simulation the
difference and what made it a game is
the environment that I created now it’s
fun I’ve got music Italian music playing
people are transported to Italy as soon
as they walk into the room the deck or
the role play the costumes I show up is
the mayor of Sardinia demanding
accountability from people negotiating
their contracts but people are having
fun we’re bringing in pizza from the
outside from the local pizza place and
people are in this environment they feel
safe enough to take risks make decisions
that they wouldn’t normally do when
they’re selling their widget in the work
place if they’re in their boardroom and
they’re discussing the next strategy and
the next move they need to know what
they’re doing they need to know what
they’re talking about and they’re not
gonna take those kinds of risks but when
you’re making pizza and you’re in the
simulated gamified game you laid an
environment why not and so now they’re
learning things that pushing the
boundaries of what they’re capable of
and they are excited to walk out there
and test all this new cool stuff they’ve
learned so I’ve been following and
tracking over 200 trainees over the last
two years and here’s what I found the
engagement level was at 90 percent in
the room that’s almost triple the
engagement rate in America right now the
retention level within just a week with
that 80 percent you compare that eighty
percent to the twenty five which is our
average for traditional classroom style
learning and we can see the
transformation that happened but here’s
what’s really exciting
remember that sixty eight billion
dollars that we talked about there was
potentially wasted because of poor
attention last year
imagine if fifty four billion dollars of
that could have been saved just by using
gamma Latian as a training tool what
could that do for the landscape in
corporate America or for the world if
you’re wondering how you can implement
this I wanna share have developed about
forty five gang relations over the last
couple of years that there are three
core elements that you need and you need
all three the first is you’ve got to be
relevant the gang nation has to be
relevant to the problem that you want to
solve to the realism it’s got to
resemble some kind of business
environment that you are likely to
experience and three the reward there’s
got to be some built-in reward that is
engaging that is motivating people to
say yes I want to be a part of this and
when you have all three not just one or
two but all three you’ve got people in
the palm of your hand I want to leave
you with this i profoundly believe that
investing in our learning and our
development is gonna be key for us to be
able to step into the roles of tomorrow
but the learning is going to be done the
right way when we enter that sweet spot
that is game ulation now a driving
engagement we’re stimulating creativity
we’re firing a probability to think
outside the box and these are core
business needs for today and tomorrow’s
leaders when I found in my training that
I started using Jam elation I pretty
much eliminated those glazed eyeballs
whether people gravitated towards the
realism of a simulation or they love the
playfulness inherent in games I had them
all employees were happy businesses were
happy and I felt pretty good that I
enabled people to connect with their
inner child
so I invite you to embrace gamble ation
as the future of training and to share
this with others particularly those that
are familiar with that glazed eye
syndrome thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
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