The Game of Work

How to Enjoy Work as Much as Play

Charles A. Coonradt

• Publisher: Gibbs Smith
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781423630852
• eBook ISBN: 9781423609735
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Human Resource Management
• Index: Business

The guide to making human nature work with you and not against you by increasing job enjoyment and producing extraordinary results.
On a hot day when the air conditioning goes off, employees can start complaining that it's too hot to work. But after work in the parking lot, where it is twenty degrees hotter, they will look at each other say, "Well, what do you think, golf or tennis?" Why will people, in recreation, pay for the privilege of working harder than they will work when they are paid?
In The Game of Work, Charles A. Coonradt explains what makes people so dedicated to recreational pursuits, and shows—with fresh, proven management techniques—how to use that same motivation to win at business. Using the principles outlined in this book, a major consumer beverage manufacturer reduced costs by 25 cents per case resulting in an annual $30 million savings, a large grocery distribution company reduced their losses from warehouse and truck damage by over $10 million, a communications firm increased profits from $1.7 million to $3.4 million in one year, a multi-store retail chain improved corporate valuation by over 500% prior to being acquired, a manufacturing firm reduced waste metal costs $30,000 a year, an advertising executive increased his sales volume 55 percent in 90 days, and a warehouse/distribution operation reduced accidents by 38% saving over $500,000 in one year.
Everyone can achieve better results with these proven principles. Company presidents, managers, supervisors, sales personnel, and human resource directors will find ideas for achieving not only personal success but also success for the entire business team.

1: The Game of Work

People will pay for the privilege of working harder than they will work when they are paid.

—Chuck Coonradt

In the frozen-food business, people are hired to work in refrigerated warehouses in terrible working conditions at near-zero temperatures. But the unions and OSHA have done much to make conditions bearable. Companies are required to provide insulated clothing and boots. In fact, an entire industry provides clothing specifically for companies with refrigerated warehouses. These companies are required to provide hot drinks within so many feet of cold work areas. Workers must have a ten-minute break every hour. It ’s tough to get people to work in those kinds of conditions. People dislike working in the cold.

Yet whenever a winter snowstorm passes over my home in the mountains, followed by clearing skies and plunging temperatures, there is a sudden jump in employee absenteeism, particularly among young workers. Instead of staying home to avoid the freezing temperatures, they migrate up the local canyons to test the famous fresh powder snow at Alta, Snowbird, or Park City. Equipped with hundreds of dollars ’ worth of equipment, they gladly take a reduction in pay for the day off and buy a seventy-five-dollar pass to spend the day outside in subfreezing temperatures. There are no hot-drink vending machines on the slopes, nor have I ever heard of a skier demanding a ten-minute break every hour. People really will pay for the privilege of working harder than they will work when they are paid.

Consider deer hunting. Every year, during the third week in October, hundreds of thousands of men drag themselves to work Monday through Thursday. They are slow and lethargic, saving their energy for the weekend. Then on Thursday afternoon, it ’s as if every one of them takes some kind of magic energy pill. Their eyes open wide. They stay up all night cleaning rifles, sharpening knives, waterproofing boots, and loading the camper with hundreds of dollars ’ worth of food. Friday morning they spend five or six hours driving along the roughest roads in the world, often in snowstorms. The next morning, the same men who on workdays have trouble fixing a bowl of cold cereal are up at 4 a.m. fixing a huge breakfast of bacon, eggs, fried potatoes, juice, and hot drinks.

After breakfast they wander out into a freezing blizzard, hoping for a chance to drag a dead deer through places they wouldn ’t carry their dying friend—all the time pretending the meat they might get is an economical investment to cut future grocery bills. Those hunters pay for the privilege of working harder than they will work when they are paid.

But why? Why do people put up to ten times as much energy and effort into their avocations as into their vocations? Why will people pay for the privilege of working harder than they will work when they are paid? There are several reasons.

First, in recreation goals are clearly defined: shooting a deer; winning a game; beating your previous time. The desired result is clear and easily measured.

I ’ve always wanted to play the Pebble Beach Gold Course in Carmel, California. That ’s where they hold the annual AT&T National Pro-Am tournament.

Let ’s assume I finally make it to the course.

“I ’m here to play, ” I say. “Where is a map of the course? ”

“We don ’t have a map of the course anymore, ” says the attendant at the door.

“How do I know where to play? Where ’s the first tee? ” I ask.

“Well, we changed, ” she says. “With property values so high we have converted half the course into condos. As a result, we ’ve changed the rules some. There ’s no longer a first tee. ”

“Well, do you have a second tee? ”

“We don ’t have a second tee, either. In fact, we don ’t have any tees anymore. ”

“Uh, well, what about the greens? ”

“Don ’t have those either. ”

“Are the boundaries gone too? ”

“Yes, except that it ’s off-limits to hit a ball into somebody ’s yard. ”

“How do I play? ”

“Well, ” she says, “we ’ve analyzed why people play golf, and the big reason is exercise. Here ’s a pedometer. Go out and walk 6,700 yards wherever you wish. You won ’t need a caddy because you only need to take along one club. Stop and swing it whenever you wish, a minimum of seventy times or until you feel like you ’ve had the normal amount of exercise for an eighteen-hole game of golf. ”

“You ’re kidding! ” I say.

“But the activity is still the same, ” she continues. “You still get the exercise, you still swing the club—you can even throw one if you want to—and you don ’t ever have to go look for a lost ball. ”

Can you imagine someone actually saying that? Or can you imagine going out on the soccer field and hearing someone say, “Listen, mostly this game is running and exercise. We don ’t want to do all the accounting, so we just took the goals out. You can run around kicking the ball for forty-five minutes, and then we ’ll take a break. Then you can run around another forty-five minutes. After that you can go home and tell everyone how well you exercised. ”

If you took the measurements out of the New York Marathon, there is no way in the world you ’d ever get twenty thousand people to stand and wait two hours on the Brooklyn Bridge in the predawn hours for a chance to run twenty-six miles.

Second, in recreation the scorekeeping is better because it ’s (1) more objective, (2) self-administered, (3) peer audited, (4) dynamic, and (5) it allows the player to compare current personal performance with past personal performance as well as with an accepted standard.

In recreation, everybody knows how to keep score. In business, however, sometimes the strokes don ’t count. Frequently workers don ’t understand the scorekeeping system. Sometimes nobody cares. All too often there is too little objectivity in business scorekeeping.

I play golf with a handicap of eighteen. If I break 85 on eighteen holes I ’m in heaven. But sometimes I play with friends who claim handicaps of eight or ten. If they hit 85, they are losing and are disappointed.

In golf you get realistic feedback that you can relate to your own past performance. If you were getting feedback on your golf game comparing you to Tiger Woods, you would soon become discouraged and quit because you could never win. But accurate feedback related to your own past performance usually gives you enough positive reinforcement to make you want to keep playing, to keep improving, to beat your own past performance standards. You win frequently enough to want to keep playing.

Have you ever met a runner who couldn ’t tell you how fast he runs his miles? Anybody can be a jogger—just shuffle along and you ’ve got it. But a runner must run miles in less than eight minutes. Every serious runner keeps score. If you consistently run eight-minute miles, then you really feel good about yourself if you finish a workout averaging 7:40-minute miles. And if you break seven, that ’s all you can talk about all day. You don ’t feel bad because you didn ’t break the four-minute mile, or because you are not running marathons in two hours. You feel great because you are measuring yourself against your own past performance and winning. If you ran your last marathon in 4:10, then you feel great when you break four hours. You don ’t feel let down if you didn ’t make 2:40. You feel like a winner because you are not comparing your performance to some unrealistic standard.

Consider a volunteer civic tennis tournament sponsored by a local television station every summer that draws 2,700 participants with only four people keeping score. In a professional golf tournament with 140 participants, there are three people keeping score, and they sit in a tent and never see a stroke. Why? Because the scorecards are self-administered and peer audited.

In recreation, the scorekeeping enables you to receive immediate and realistic feedback. You know at all times how you are doing.

Imagine that you are on the golf course playing for twenty dollars a hole. You have two holes left to play and you ’re behind, so you talk your opponent into pressing the bet—double the bet on the last two holes in an effort to catch up.

You step up to the tee and blast the ball over the fence. You don ’t have to wait until the next six-month interview with the golf pro to know you blew it. You have been keeping your own score on every hole and know exactly where you stand.

You feel bad, not because you didn ’t play as well as Tiger Woods or Anita Sorsenstam, but because you didn ’t play up to your personal expectations corresponding to your handicap.

Scorekeeping is an effective form of motivation if it is objective, self-administered, and peer audited.

Third, in recreation feedback is more frequent. Everyday, everybody needs to know whether they are winning or losing. What do you think would happen if the commissioner of pro football walked onto the field at the beginning of the annual Super Bowl game to determine the best football team in the world, and said to the players, “We ’re going to be more businesslike in our approach to football today. We ’re not going to keep score. The commissioners are just going to watch the game, then meet and decide which team played the best. We ’ll let you know what we decide within three months. ” The commissioner would have to run for his life!

Fortunately, in most recreational activities you don ’t have to depend on a boss or supervisor to tell you how you are doing. You know what the score is as the game progresses, and nobody can change that just because they don ’t like you. The feedback is accurate and frequent—you know where you stand every time you throw the ball. And everybody knows how to keep score.

Feedback is the breakfast of champions. People who want to get ahead, who want to win, who want to improve and get the job done—these people want feedback. If you don ’t think feedback is important, go count the mirrors in your house.

If you want to improve the quality of performance in any area, you simply improve or increase the frequency of feedback. If you have a problem and you are getting a quarterly report, change it to a monthly report. If that doesn ’t do the job, turn it into a weekly or daily report. By increasing the frequency of your feedback, you have more opportunities to catch and eliminate problems of a solvable size.

Fourth, in recreation participants feel they have a higher degree of choice. Think about the words that imply a lack of choice—words frequently used in business. Words like “have to, ” “should, ” “must. ” How many times have you heard someone say, “I have to go play tennis? ”

I ’m a tennis player, and I don ’t think golfers get much exercise. They hit the ball, get in the cart, get out of the cart, hit the ball again, and get back in the cart. Racquetballers don ’t think tennis players get much exercise. We stand around, only half of the serves count, and we chase the ball half of the time. Handballers say real players don ’t need racquets to beat up on a little bitty ball. Part of the reason for liking a recreational activity is the free choice you have in electing to do it.

Managers must ask themselves if they are using the principle of choice when giving out assignments to employees. Are people being allowed to perform in areas where they have natural interests and abilities, or is their business like the Army of old where bakers were ordered to drive trucks? When people feel that they have no choice in what they are doing, they lose their enthusiasm, and performance suffers.

Fifth, in recreation they don ’t change the rules in the middle of the game. Imagine that you are playing pool in a strange town and winning. You just put in the eight ball when somebody announces that it didn ’t count because you didn ’t say “Homer Simpson ” before it went in the hole. Obviously you are upset because someone changed the rules on you. That doesn ’t happen in sports. If the basketball goes through the hoop, you get two points. There are also three-point baskets, but the rules for getting those baskets are set up during the off-season, never in the middle of a game. In business, however, rules are frequently changed in the middle of the game.

One time I sat down with a regional sales manager for a lightbulb manufacturer. We were talking about scorekeeping and maintaining a high motivational level among the salespeople.

“We have a good scorekeeping system, ” he said. “Our people get regular reports listing their point accumulations, yet the system doesn ’t seem to motivate our people. ”

“That sounds strange, ” I said, because it appeared to be a good scorekeeping system.

Then he said, “I guess the thing they are upset about is the Annual National Quota Adjustment. ”

“What? ” I said.

“Annual National Quota Adjustment, ” he repeated matter-of-factly, as if I ought to be familiar with the term.

“Tell me about it, ” I said.

“If the whole company, ” he explained, “does 125 percent of quota, then we depreciate the value of everybody ’s points back down to the 100 percent level. ”

“It ’s obvious to me, ” I said, “that your people can ’t count on a stroke being a stroke. You are changing the rules in the middle of the game. ”

Consider a grocery store where the meat manager has just been chewed out by the store manager for not making enough money on the meat.

“We ’re going to fix this, ” says the store manager to the meat manager. “We ’re going to pinch every nickel and dime in this department, and we are going to start making some money! ” The meat manager nods in agreement.

Mrs. Jones comes in the store an hour later with a complaint about the roast beef she bought. She goes back to the meat manager, who has just had the rules laid down about watching the pennies. The manager gives her a hard time about exchanging the roast. She gives up and goes to the store manager, who says, “No problem, Mrs. Jones. I ’ll take you back and explain to that meat manager of mine how we are going to have customer satisfaction around here. ” The store manager has changed the rules in the middle of the game.

What if they changed the rules in a football game and the referee said after a touchdown that the ball carrier got into the end zone too easily, so the touchdown would be worth only four points?

Changing the rules in the middle of the game adds to the uncertainty of the game. Good managers seek to minimize uncertainty. Workers, like athletes, perform better when they know where they stand, when they know the score. A feeling of certainty creates a sense of security about working conditions. Managers cannot eliminate all uncertainty, but by not changing the rules in the middle of the game, they can go a long way toward minimizing uncertainty.

In the workplace, when expectations are clearly defined and uncertainty is minimized, it is easi...

Table of contents

• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1: The Game of Work
• 2: Goals
• 3: Scorekeeping
• 4: Feedback
• 5: Choice
• 6: Field of Play
• 7: Winning
• 8: Attitudes of Winners
• 9: Results to Resources Ratio
• 10: Picking Winners
• 11: Coaching Winners to Greatness
• 12: Winning at the Game of Work
• What Is the Game of Work?