NEW: Check out Our Premium Investment Portfolio here

About

My BlogTemplete

TEMPLETE

Tanjim Abir

9/8/20257 min read

• 6 min read • Must-Read Personal Finance written by TANJIM ABIR │ ASSET ALLOCATION

Work While Playing or Play While Working

What happens when work becomes play? Confessions of a corporate mouse.

— cm

Have you ever wondered why people pay to sweat at the gym, but complain if the air conditioning in their office doesn't work?

ON THIS PAGE

What is Creativity?
The Creative Process
Is There Such a Thing as ‘Naturally Creative’?
Three Lessons on Creativity from Famous Creators
How to Be Creative
Best Creativity Books
All Creativity Articles

This seemingly innocuous question is at the heart of a book I just finished reading, and it would probably make me unpopular to criticize.

📚 Must Read Personal Finance Book

Security Analysis

Security Analysis proves that value investing is about constant reinvention. This new edition delivers fresh insights from top minds, keeping the classic alive for today’s markets.

Discover the book →

Also because I'm convinced that most people will read this book nodding enthusiastically.

Many managers will put it on their company “must-read” list, sharing it with equally enthusiastic subordinates.

And after all, how could I blame them?

The idea proposed by Coonradt is attractive,

Simply making work fun, like a game, will make employees more productive, precisely because they're "having fun."

And who could oppose it?

Yet, despite the seemingly impeccable logic, something leaves me deeply perplexed.

If you have read Pavlov, Skinner, or Milgram and know something about behaviorism, then this book will make you think critically.

But it's not immediately obvious.

The way it's written makes the book enjoyable: that is, it subtly gets under your skin with that "unmissable" feel that management bestsellers know how to convey.

For me, however, this aftertaste turned into something bitter.

Why?

Because while Skinner was experimenting with pigeons, Coonradt essentially wrote a book on how to apply those same experiments to humans in the office.

I think it all started with this question:

Why do people work harder at the games they pay to play than at the work they get paid to do?

At this point, something clicked in Coonradt's head. A light bulb went on.

His answer was simple:

Why not turn work into a game and make the employee more "engaged" (or should I say more dependent) so that this dependence creates productivity while "playing."

In the 21st century, technological advancements have made it incredibly easy to implement game mechanics into any activity.

So "gamification" has become the mantra of Silicon Valley and, as often happens, it has also boomeranged here in Europe.

And we, as good Europeans always ready to embrace overseas trends, have welcomed this philosophy with open arms.

Today we have internalized it to the point that gamification techniques have become an integral part of our corporate jargon, now ingrained in our daily work culture.

Turn work into play

Coonradt's idea is simple: if you turn work into play, people will enjoy it as if it were free time.

At first glance, the logic is impeccable.

Think about how many of us spend hundreds of euros on sports equipment, not to mention all those ski passes to go skiing in sub-zero temperatures without complaining, while at the office we complain if the air conditioning is too strong.

But there's a crucial detail that Coonradt seems to deliberately ignore: we choose sport. Work, in most cases, we don't.

This is not a marginal difference, if you think about it.

It is the very essence of the human experience: autonomy, the freedom of choice.

When we freely decide to do something, our brain processes it in a completely different way than when it is forced upon us.

And this is where, in my opinion, Coonradt's brilliant theory begins to show its cracks.

Behaviorism applied to the desk

What bothers me most about Coonradt's ideas is their behaviorist underpinning, which essentially reduces workers to "laboratory rats."

He says it himself without mincing words:

The second formative force in attitude is conditioning. It's the same force that trains dogs with shock collars or makes Pavlov's dogs salivate when the bell rings.

Simply put, without frills: the goal is to create addiction through constant feedback loops.

In this vision, the worker is transformed into a slot machine player where every daily activity becomes an opportunity to 'pull the lever' generating that feverish and anxious wait for the next reward .

At this point, it doesn't even matter whether this reward is a pat on the back, a shiny virtual badge, a round of applause during a meeting, or a €100 raise in your paycheck absorbed by the superminimum.

The psychological mechanism remains the same: a dependence cleverly disguised as professional involvement.

Then clear.

While gamification may temporarily boost productivity, it ignores fundamental human needs: the freedom to choose how to do your work, the sense of doing something that truly matters, and the opportunity to grow as a professional and as a person.

Now let's see what Coonradt wants to teach us, in the form of a template repeated "parrot-like", throughout the book.

The Five Principles of Productive Dependence

Coonradt proposes five "principles" that he says make work more engaging:

Frequent feedback : "If you want to improve the quality of performance, increase the frequency of feedback." (In other words, constantly check in with your employees.)
Clear and measurable goals : "Goals are more clearly defined in sports than in business, let's do it in the workplace too." (In work, according to him, everything must be quantifiable, even the unquantifiable.)
Constant scoring : "When performance is measured and reported, the rate of improvement accelerates." (His suggestion is this: Turn everything into numbers and rank people as if they were competing in the Olympics.)
Greater personal involvement : "The key to motivation is individual involvement." (Basically: make people feel responsible even for things outside of their control.)
Consistency in rules : "People are motivated in sports because they know no one is going to change the rules mid-game." (This, I have to admit, is the only principle I agree with, except, perhaps, the topic of measurable goals.)

Why does this approach make me angry?

Coonradt's concept may seem brilliant from a managerial point of view, I admit.

However, this method raises several problems.

It treats us like machines : It reduces people to cogs that respond to stimuli, ignoring human complexity and our need for meaning.
It's addictive : Just as a gambler is addicted to the thrill of the occasional win, workers become addicted to feedback loops and rewards.
Confuses extrinsic and intrinsic motivation : Instead of cultivating a genuine interest in work well done, he replaces everything with external rewards and competition.
It infantilizes us : it treats us like children who need to be entertained to do their work, rather than adults capable of finding meaning in what they do.

As Coonradt himself says, without realizing the irony:

Attitude is formed by conditioning. Conditioning occurs through repetition."

Now, I don't know about you, but when I read those words, it makes me think: isn't that pretty much the definition of brainwashing?

Effectively,

In the 21st century, this approach has evolved into what we now call “ gamification .”

With modern technology, it has become incredibly easy to apply game mechanics to any business activity.

Apps, dashboards, scores, badges, levels, leaderboards… it all seems harmless and fun, but in reality it is a sophisticated system of behavioral control that turns work into a constant competition.

And while business consultants rave about how to harness fun to shape behavior, I increasingly ask myself, what the f*** are we talking about?

Before closing…

While Coonradt and his followers see their method as a liberation from boring work

I see it differently.

I think Conrandt sees us as Skinner's pigeons, Pavlov's dogs, but without visible chains.

The cage is still there, it's just that now it has transparent walls and we press the button ourselves, convinced we're playing.

Is it effective? Probably, in the short term. Is it ethical and sustainable? I have my doubts.

The question we should be asking ourselves at this point is not how we can make work more like play.

But,

How can we make work intrinsically meaningful?

Because in the end, we are not Skinner's pigeons pecking at a button for a reward.

We are human beings who seek meaning, autonomy, and mastery in what we do.

And maybe, instead of gamifying work, we should simply humanize it.

Give it a purpose beyond the score.

Perhaps it makes sense to remind ourselves that behind every metric is a person, not an avatar.

But hey, what do I know? I'm not a consultant making thousands of euros a day.

I'm just someone who refuses to be treated like a lab rat.

Take care!

FOOTNOTES ▼

Breakpoint and Beyond: Mastering the Future Today by George Land and Beth Jarman (1992). The Creativity Crisis: The Decrease in Creative Thinking Scores on the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. Creativity Research Journal, Volume 23, Issue 4, 2011.
Encyclopedia of Giftedness, Creativity, and Talent By Barbara Kerr
If you look for it, you will also find a huge hidden benefit of sharing your work publicly: the gut reaction. Whenever you share something with someone else — a business idea, an article you wrote, a painting, a picture — there will be a split second when they first process your work that you get their true response. In my experience, you will either have genuine excitement (which is an indication that you are onto something good) or any other emotion (which is an indication that it’s average at best).

Deep Marketing - The Galvani Method

What if your next brilliant idea has already been thought of?