Games aren’t much “fun” when rules, rather than relationships, dominate the activity, when there is no attention to “flow,” “fairness,” “respect” and “nice.”
Dr. Linda Hughes, “Beyond the Rules of the Game: Why Are Rooie Rules Nice?”
At a past job, we played Hearts every day at lunch. Out of a core group of 6-8, there were always at least four to participate. I worked there for about five years; we played over a thousand games together. We wore out dozens of decks of cards.
On top of the core rules of Hearts, we accrued a whole culture. There was the “Slone shooter” (the worst possible score, named for a former member of the group). We said “Panda Panda” (winning a trick with the highest card) and “Where’s the Jerboa?” (the two of clubs comes out to start the game) — both originated in our favorite deck, which had a different animal on each card. Long after that deck retired, the cards retained their animal names.
We had rules of etiquette. The player in the lead was the target, and everyone else works together to damage their score. Everyone was expected to make a logically justifiable play, except when succumbing to other players chanting “Panda Panda!” to summon the Ace of Hearts.
I’ve never since had that much fun at cards. The rules of the game are only the beginning.
See, you can think about games, or you can observe gaming. There are the rules as written, and then there’s the experience of the players.
It’s the same with work: you can talk about work-as-imagined, or you can look at work-as-done.
Work-as-imagined is the official process. It is how you’re supposed to get your work done. Work-as-done is real life.
This is why tabletop board games are more fun than their electronic equivalents. Everyone sees how the rules work, because we execute them ourselves. House rules evolve. When there’s ambiguity, the group decides what’s fair. Lovely traditions grow, jokes get funnier with repetition, and the game becomes richer than its rules.
It’s the same at work. Post-its on the wall give shared physical context, and they’re more flexible than any ticket-tracking software. (Software usually limits reality to what was imagined by its developers.)
Each collaborating team eventually develops its own small culture. Vocabulary, jokes, etiquette. These exist on top of (sometimes in spite of) decreed processes of work.
These interactions make work “fun.” They care about “fairness,” “respect,” and “nice.” They also lead to “flow” — flow of work through the team. Communication is smooth, collaboration is joyful and productive. This is how we win.