Interviewer: Mariham Magdy

Gamification does not mean we turn your work or your learning into a game (although it might as well be case); it does mean that we can create something – a game, a system, rules, mechanics – that you ‘play’ in your role as an employee, that is fun and engaging has real-life impact, because of your behavior” Michiel Van Eunen

Brief Introduction about the Interviewee:

Michiel is a Gamification Expert, Speaker, Experience Designer, Escape Room designer, LEGO Serious Play Facilitator and Experience STAR Facilitator from Amsterdam, Netherlands.

He lives by the slogan “You Can’t Win If You Don’t Play”. He is known for drawing on experience in education, e-learning, theatre, retail, training, start-ups, event, and gaming industries. What thrilled him most is designing purposeful fun!

Some of Michiel’s great achievements include being listed on Rise Global Top 100 Gamification Guru, being a committee member of Gamfed International Gamification Federation Steering, and the Ambassador for Mission Start – Platform for Gamification & Game Based Learning.

He talks, inspire and advise about gamification at conferences, workshops and strategic sessions. Some of those include Gamification World Congress, Dutch Training Professionals, and more.

Michiel was the Gamification Designer for Performance Solutions and Facilitator for LEGO Serious Play Method.

1- HR Revolution Middle East: “Welcome Mr. Michiel, it is our pleasure to make this interview with you.  Would you share with us how “Gamification” nowadays helps a great deal in changing learners’ as well as employees’ experience in different fields?

Michiel Van Eunen:

Engagement, attention, the way we experience media and the way we learn is changing rapidly.

Where people get easily disengaged at work, gamification looks at what we can learn from games, by applying ingredients from games in real life, and in the context of being in employee – in your work.

Gamification does not mean we turn your work or your learning into a game (although it might as well be case); it does mean that we can create something – a game, a system, rules, mechanics – that you ‘play’ in your role as an employee, that is fun and engaging has real-life impact, because of your behavior. This can be a higher productivity, learning faster or smarter, eating healthier.. It can be anything.

2- HR Revolution Middle East: “You Can’t Win If You Don’t Play” would you tell us more about what does this slogan symbolize?

Michiel Van Eunen:

It inspires me to have a playful attitude. If you play, you get alive; you take decisions that have consequences. Either positive or negative, but they are your choices. This feeds right into the things that motivate us most: autonomy, mastery, purpose and relatedness.

3- HR Revolution Middle East: One of the most interesting parts in your work you have spoken about during your speech in the HRTAC19 was the “Escape Rooms” designing. How much effort do you really exert in the background in order to design an “Escape Room”? To what extent do you believe that “Escape Rooms” can impact positively the team dynamics, more than other team building activities?

Michiel Van Eunen:

In an escape room, you are intensively playing for an hour; searching, puzzling, analyzing and deducing. But also: collaborating, convincing, leading and following and taking initiative. And you may add dynamics like communication, trust, flexibility, responsibility. Oh, and herd behavior, competition, stress and time pressure.

The beautiful thing is; when people are intensively engaged in an activity (flow), they’re not thinking about that. They are not concerned with how they should behave; they fall back on their natural behavior and patterns. If you register what happens in an Escape Room during one hour of playing, you will have a wealth of information about those players. Somehow, Plato already knew that 2400 years ago.

The power of the Escape Room is not just in the 60 minutes of intense play. It’s the part right after, that matters. The part where we look back and say: ‘What just happened ?!’

Depending on the time, the group and the development goal (or learning goal), we can look back at the Escape Room – at both individual and team level – through different lenses.

Content (in the case of the Reverse Escape Room: Reverse Thinking

Thinking different

Play versus work

Team / organizational culture

Team themes (cooperation, trust, communication)

Skills (problem solving ability, analysis, deduction, out-of-the-box thinking, working under time pressure)

Link with behavioral styles (eg: emergenetics, insights, MBTI)

Link with leadership styles

Link with elements from the organization’s blueprint

4- HR Revolution Middle East: Mr. Michiel, you are listed on Rise Global Top 100 Gamification Guru, Would you share with us more information about the list selections & how were you able to realize such great achievement?

Michiel Van Eunen:

Gamification is a relative niche expertise field. Since it became more known around 2011 – because of great pioneers like Jane McGonigal, Yukai Chou and Gabe Zichermamn, to name a few, I have been around sharing my own experience. I am lucky to work with great clients around the world who want to experience what gamification can do for them. I put a great deal of effort in making impactful gamification designs. And whether they work or fail (they do both), I am happy to share. That is of great value to the community.

5- HR Revolution Middle East: “What are the major business problems that can be solved through Gamification? What piece of advice would you share with business leaders to consider when they approach Gamification Solutions?”

Michiel Van Eunen:

Gamification can be a great force in a broad field of business cases. I personally love to see that people who might be labelled as ‘disengaged’ / not motivated, can be highly motivated if you put them in a different context – for instance an escape room.

Gamification is not a solution. And there is no such thing as a fixed ‘Gamification Solution’. As a business leader you should be aware of that. Gamification is a design practice, just like ‘design thinking’ is. If you have challenges that involve human behaviour, change, learning or motivation, then Gamification can be a great way to approach it. I would always advice to team up with a gamification expert to create a solution that fits your needs (and budget). In the same sense that you would hire a top-chef to prepare a great menu for your guests, instead of ordering take-away or cooking up your own microwave meal. The risk for disappointment is great!

6- HR Revolution Middle East: “Mr. Michiel, one of the most important roles you had was being the Gamification Designer for Performance Solutions for LEGO Serious Play Method. Would you please share with us more about this role and what success stories resulted from those solutions have you witnessed during this period?

Michiel Van Eunen:

LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® is a methodology developed by LEGO as an innovative process designed to enhance innovation and business performance. Based on research which shows that this kind of hands-on, minds-on learning produces a deeper, more meaningful understanding of the world and its possibilities, the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® methodology deepens the reflection process and supports an effective dialogue – for everyone in the organization.

I love to get people to play. When they enter the room with a table littered with thousands of Lego bricks, they immediately start playing with it. I just direct their play by giving structured building challenges and let them reflect on it. The wonderful thing about the method is that it creates great metaphors and lends itself so well for storytelling. It can make complex, abstract matters very clear, and ‘shareable’. Teams can build their company culture, a new service, more efficient work-streams, …..you name it.

7- HR Revolution Middle East: “You have recently delivered an amazing workshop during HRTAC19 about leveling up HRM with Gamification. How Gamification can change the future of HR processes?

Michiel Van Eunen:

What I find astonishing is that HR insists on taking the perspective of the company or organization, instead of that of the employees. HR can learn a lot from Gamification, by starting out with a simple question to ask employees: What do YOU want?’

Gamification is basically ‘Human Focused Design’. When you compare (playing) a game to operating in a real-life system (work), you can easily see where the work-environment falls short:
Most systems are designed with a focus on their function, with the purpose to be efficient & do the job quickly (procedures, rules, methods), and based on the assumption that people will do what is expected (because they have to, or because they are paid for it).
Most games are designed with a focus on humans, who experience feelings –  insecurities, reasons, fears, motivation, desires, engagement – with no other purpose than to please the individuals playing them, and on the knowledge that players will abandon as soon as it fails to engage.

Work should be more like (playing) a game. Not in the sense that it is merely an entertaining pastime, but for the reason that it puts the player (worker) at the center.

I truly believe in the credo ‘If you take care of your employees, they will take care of your clients’

8- HR Revolution Middle East: Finally, I would like to ask you what do you expect would be the future of Gamification? How it will evolve to disrupt other industries?

Michiel Van Eunen:

Gamification – or broader: human focused design – will evolve naturally. It will grow when we see that it works; when we get reports on hard KPIs, clear ROI and positive testimonials of those who have tried and succeeded.
There is a big risk though. On the one hand, the market gets flooded with ‘gamification solutions’. To me, solutions belong to a specific problem, and no two problems, no two teams, no two companies are the same.

On the other hand, ignorance or being frugal, may lead many companies to choose for these ‘fixed solutions’. Both can lead to disappointing outcomes. Of course this doesn’t mean that Gamification in itself would not work; It means it is a complex discipline. It can have a huge impact if you acquire the expertise of a professional.

THANK YOU