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What does every sport or game known to man have in common? For starters, they all have some way of keeping score. Whether it’s six points for a touchdown or a tiny slice of plastic pie for the right answers in Trivial Pursuit, all games have a built-in way for the players to know where they stand. All games have clear-cut rules: Hit the goalie in the mouth with your stick and you will be penalized. All games and sports also have an objective: Pin the sucker to the mat, accumulate more points than the other team, capture the flag.

The point? People enjoy games because of their clear-cut goals and score keeping characteristics (as well as for providing a lawsuit-free excuse to tackle people and make them eat dirt). Again, the point? There is a good chance that your employees are in the same position a a football player who doesn’t know the score, ha no idea how to win, and can’t figure out the rules. If that player were you, would you be out on the field giving it your all, or would you be in a shower stall figuring out which knob turned on the hot water?

“As a manager, you want to create a motivational environment that parallels the one found in sports,” says Joseph H. Boyett, vice-president of Atlanta-based management consulting firm Tarkenton Conn & Company, and coauthor of Maximum Performance Management. “As or president, Fran Tarkenton, says, the best thing about playing football is that whe you leave the field, you know whether you’ve won or lost. Most workers go home at the end of the day never knowing.”

To this end, the first thing you should do as a manager is define the mission or purpose of the group. This does not mean writing one line that say, “The purpose of this group is to make plastic fruit for the women of Borneo to wear on their head.” Focus not only on the product but upon the larger ramifications as well. Why does the group exist? What is it trying to accomplish within the higher mission of the organization as a whole? Who are the customers (internal or external) being served by the group? What does the group need to do to meet the customers’ needs?

The next step is to communicate your vision to the employees so that there is no doubt in the group as to what they are all about and what kind of value they bring to the corporation. Make sure there is heavy emphasis on value. Perhaps the plastic fruit is not going to change the balance of world power, but maybe the cash derived from this profit center will allow the corporation’s R & D department to create a new vaccine for its pharmaceutical division. People don’t like to play a game if it seems meaningless. Let the group know that the stakes are higher than they thought.

“The manager should then create a good measurement and feedback system for his or her employees,” says Boyett. “You know what the group is supposed to accomplish. Now you need to figure out the five to ten determinants that measure improvement, and then set a series of reachable goals in terms of those determinants.” If possible your group, or representatives thereof, should participate in the choosing of the key indicators of success as well as the goal-setting process. Keep in mind that any competent employee is an expert in a small field, be it file keeping or drill press operation. Solicit every one’s opinions and in corporate them when you can. You’ll not only get some good ideas, but you’ll get your employees to commit themselves to a plan which they helped create.

“Make large, colorful graphs that track the key indicators and pinpoint goal targets,” says Boyett. “Post them in a public area where everyone can see them. Hold regular meetings to discuss the progress reflected by those indicators. Inherit in this is the idea that information should not be kept secret. All the behavior research on motivation shows that people want feedback, they want information on how they are doing. Making charts is an excellent way of providing it in an ongoing and constant manner.”

The results of this fairly simple and basic technique can be astounding. “Research has shown that if you take people who haven’t received feedback and you set up a score keeping method, you can expect an improvement in performance of anywhere from 20 to 50 percent,” says Boyett. “Of course if all you do is keep score, this performance boost won’t last over time. I call it the old consultant’s trick. A consultant can go into an organization, determine performance indicators, set up graphs, focus people’s attention, and get an instant leap in productivity. As long as she gets out of there in a month she’s going to look great. But after she leaves, things will start to slide back to pre feedback levels.”

Why? Because feedback is what i known as an antecedent. In the ABCs of motivation an antecedent (A) is what gets behavior started. While B stands for actual behavior, it is C that needs to be applied along with A to keep motivation high. C stands for consequences.