Merge's Blog

Get important tasks done by connecting them to a fun reward

For the past week, I’ve been sharing a series of experiments sponsored by Volkswagen that examines the hypothesis – if it’s fun, will people do it. Here is the third experiment.

Experiment #3: The question – can we get more children in cars to fasten their seat belts by connecting this action to a fun reward? In this case, the fun reward was the ability to use to the in-car entertainment system; unless the seat belt was fastened, the entertainment system would not activate. This video shows you the results.

So, what can you learn from this as a leader? Is there a way for you to get key responsibilities completed correctly and on time by connecting them to a fun reward? What are you doing right now? Or now that you think about it, what might work? Let’s get a discussion going on this.

By the way, if you’re interested in previous “fun theory” experiments, I blogged about the two original experiments back in November 2009. If it’s fun, will people do it? – has two additional videos you can watch.

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