The Power of The Scoreboard

Do you like playing or watching sport?

Have you ever considered what makes people so excited they can leap to their feet and scream at a screen?

Do you get as excited over a game of American Football as you would be over watching an All Blacks game?

Sport is a multi-billion dollar industry world wide. People invest thousands of personal hours into playing and watching sport. One only needs to go to a local pub on a night that they are showing an All Blacks game to see the passion, energy and focused commitment being displayed. How would your team rank against that crowd in a local pub on energy levels, passion and commitment. What is it about sports games that brings so much positive energy from people? (Shouting and swearing at the screen from a bad call by a ref is still a display of impassioned energy.) 

I have asked this question multiple times in training and the answers are very consistent. We understand the object of the game is to win; we clearly know what winning looks like, and have a scoreboard to constantly remind us where we sit on a leaderboard. Furthermore, we know the rules of the game. (This is why most Kiwis would enjoy a game of rugby far more than a game of American football where we do not understand why a bunch of padded men are running around tackling people who don’t even have a ball.)

Does your team know they are winning? Can every single one of your team members look back at the end of a day’s work and tell you whether they feel they’ve won or lost that particular day? In my experience, very few team members are clear on what winning at work looks like. With the absence of a scoreboard or any reference point, people tend to come to work and do what’s required to meet the demands of that day. The energy extended in this can range from doing enough to keep your job, through to people making their own checklists so that they can at least feel like they are crossing something off. 

Teams that know when they are winning or losing and understand the “rules” of play/work are profoundly more effective. I am consistently amazed at the difference in productivity once an agreed upon scoreboard is put in place. By “agreed upon” what I mean is that team members need to feel like they have control over moving the dial that indicates they are winning. This is very important because the lack of this is the equivalent to telling people you will give them a bonus if the sun shines - they have no control and therefore drop back into accepting that what will be, will be. 

When a team member can see the dial move towards the set goal, either because they got a sale and they’re closer to hitting the target, or they dispatched a pallet load of product and the invoice value goes up a little bit, feeling like you can contribute in a way that makes a positive difference is very powerful. People seem to be hard-wired to do more of things that give positive feedback. When you put in place a scoreboard, and celebrate the success of winning at the end of every day, and maybe even celebrating at the end of the week if that week’s target is hit, (with perhaps shouting pizza for lunch or something similar) you create a culture where people want to succeed and achieve. I have seen team members double down and do an extra dash of calling because they feel that they’re just a few connect calls off that week’s target. Scoreboards don’t just help us know whether we are winning or losing, but very much like the energy you see when people are watching a game that they enjoy, scoreboards help to bring passion and energy and additional motivation and activity from your team. 

Have you tapped into the power of effective scoreboards in your company? If not, I strongly suggest it’s something you look into. Here’s to your success!