Week 7 into my new role at Motivait, as Engagement Solution Consultant, and it’s about time to share some of the great early experiences!
A highlight that immediately comes to mind has to be my first unforgettable team trip to the Madrid office. I vividly remember reflecting on the first evening on how authentic, welcoming and approachable everyone was. I remember catching myself thinking how easy it was to dive straight into team activities; watching solutions grow from ideas in a brainstorm to eye catching graphic designs, and learning how our platform empowers these concepts. But as much as the focus in those early days was about learning the ropes, the team were also genuinely interested in hearing about me and my background and how we can collaborate and complement each other.
So where do I fit into the team and the shaping of our solutions? My background is in Occupational Psychology – applying the science of psychology to work settings to develop the performance and wellbeing of organisations and people. At Motivait this means I’m a part of supporting the effectiveness of our methodologies and solution designs, ensuring they align with the behavioural objectives and evidence-based practices that are most relevant to our clients’ needs and local contexts.
The power of any team is very much in the sum of all its parts, and Motivait is certainly a diverse and multi-disciplinary set of parts; in terms of industry experience, background expertise and perspectives. From Clinical, Health & Occupational Psychology, to Gamification, UX and Creative Design, to Comms and Marketing and to Technological expertise such as Network Security or Coding. I can only describe it as an awesome Pick ’n’ Mix bag of treats that I’m truly excited to be a part of!
Because of the multi-disciplinary make-up at the core of our offerings, something you come to realise quickly is that any problem can be understood and resolved from a variety of approaches. Whilst an approach may initially be accepted (perhaps supported theoretically and empirically) to address a common or reoccurring problem, unless we design for the local context (the views and concerns of stakeholder groups and the user experience) the solution to a specific challenge is unlikely to be sustainable over time.
This is where human-focussed thinking and Gamification can add value to the solution design process. By applying game elements and ‘gameful’ experiences to non-game contexts, we can foster ways of enhancing participant’s desire to engage with learning and problem-solving activities in the real world. It’s more than simply making a process fun or game-like; it comes down to designing a solution that is centred around people and the reasons for them wanting to engage.
Whilst it can feel challenging to take on problem-solving with approaches that may seem untraditional, especially when you’re all looking at a problem from differing disciplines; I’ve found that it’s easier tackling the problem with a roomful of different personalities, perspectives, ideas, inspirations and resources.
After all – if it were simple, it wouldn’t be worth doing!
