Jason Fox: Game Changer Book Review

The Game Changer Book

Dr Jason Fox; The Game Changer: How to use the science of motivation with the power of game design to shift behaviour, shape culture and make clever happen; Wiley, 2014

The Author: Dr Jason Fox

Dr Jason Fox has been studying motivation for the past 10 years. Firstly, as his PhD topic. And, since through his consulting work with organisations. Dr Fox is also a highly engaging keynote speaker.

Website: DrJasonFox.com

Tedx Talk UniMelb 2012

The Big Idea

Most of what we know about motivation is not just out-dated, it’s just plain wrong and simply doesn’t work. This can be a trap for self, and a costly culture killer in organisations.

Speed RAP

The Game Changers is neatly packaged into three sections:

1. The usual motivation approaches and why most of them fail
2. The nature of games and why we’re compelled to play them
3. How to create a game we’ll play and win – including defeating our personal saboteurs

[Tweet “World class! The Game Changer #book by @drjasonfox Why the usual motivation approaches #fail”]

The Design

The book is artfully written in Jason’s contemporary personable and quirky style. It’s got a serious sense of humour and every page oozes personality and engagement. Visit his website to confirm this for yourself.

My favourite parts of the book are the hand drawn illustrations by the author – they add style, humour and visual candy.

My only fault with this book is the small font size. Perhaps, it’s my eyes fading as I grow wrinkles and lose my youth. And, in the early pages of reading this book I felt a distinct lack of progress. Given I was reading how important this is for motivation, I felt this to be a reasonable complaint. I realised the small font was to blame. Perhaps, the publisher is trying to save some money on print costs.

[Tweet “Better results – for yourself and your teams – Read The Game Changer #book by @drjasonfox”]

Your Challenge

The problem with most motivation strategies is that we’ve applied them to a game we cannot win. Instead, change your game to change your results.

My RAP

World class! This book stands side-by-side and toe-to-toe with Daniel Pink’s Drive as two of the best recent books on motivation and the design of work. This one goes much further by combining game design with motivation theory. This is my new guide for designing how I work and I’ll share how I’m using it in future posts. Read it if you want to want better results.

Podcast: Expect an interview with Dr Fox soon…

Disclaimer: This book was a review copy supplied by the author.