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Kate Shoup is the coauthor of Business Gamification For Dummies®. She has written more than 25 books, has coauthored a feature-length screenplay, and worked as the sports editor for NUVO newsweekly.

Kate Shoup

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Businesses That Are Making a Play: 10 Great Gamified Sites and Apps

A well-crafted strategy is about making intentional choices that position organizations for long-term success. A thoughtful approach defines where you’re going and lays out a clear, adaptive path forward that everyone within the organization can understand. Great strategy goes beyond planning—it’s about centering people, creating alignment across the organization, and developing resilient and responsive plans. Here’s how organizations can bring strategic alignment and planning into focus.The Key Elements of a High-Impact Strategic PlanA successful strategic plan engages stakeholders, translates complexity into clarity, and provides actionable steps forward. Based on insights from diverse industries, high-impact strategies tend to include these foundational elements:Clear insight: Effective strategy starts with a clear understanding of the organization’s current reality. Leveraging data and insights from both internal and external sources reveals opportunities and pinpoints challenges, building a strong foundation for decisions.Stakeholder engagement: Building a strategic plan is as important as the strategy itself. Engaging a range of perspectives across the organization supports buy-in and ensures that diverse needs and ideas are represented. A shared commitment emerges naturally when the process includes the voices of those affected.Clarity (not certainty): A great plan is clear, accessible, and memorable even amid the ever-increasing velocity of change affecting the business environment. While strategies often include detailed steps, the essence should be easy to communicate and inspire everyone involved, serving as a guide that motivates people to act even in the face of adversity and business challenges.Purposeful prioritization: Successful strategies provide focus, helping leaders and teams prioritize what matters most. With clear priorities, leaders can make informed decisions about where to direct resources and energy—guiding what to pursue and what to pause.Adjustability: Strategy is not a one-time event. A dynamic plan is regularly refreshed, keeping it relevant and aligned with the organization’s evolving landscape and goals.A Framework to Establish a Foundation for ActivationStrategic alignment and planning aren’t one-size-fits-all. Every organization’s journey is unique, requiring a tailored approach that meets specific needs—whether through targeted prioritization, collaborative strategy development, or a comprehensive, multi-year planning effort.A strategy succeeds when it’s embraced by the people who carry it forward. The best strategies are developed with an eye toward activation—doing so will transform the strategy from ideas on paper into actions that drive progress. Use the following strategic planning framework to establish the foundation for successful activation:1. Assess: Begin with data collection, interviews, and a thorough assessment to establish a baseline understanding. This stage reveals valuable insights and identifies critical factors needed to move forward.2. Envision: Strategy gains momentum when leaders collaborate to define a shared vision for the future. Through structured visioning sessions, organizations can establish a clear, mid-term outcome that anchors the strategic plan.3. Align on priorities: With a vision in place, it’s time to set priorities, create a change narrative, and establish metrics for success. Tools like strategic dashboards can provide ongoing visibility into progress and impact.4. Activate: Effective activation includes planning for communication, ensuring teams understand and support the strategy, and assessing readiness for change. This is the point at which strategy transitions into action.How to Elevate People-Centered Strategy at Your OrganizationA strategic approach that resonates with people at all levels creates authentic and meaningful alignment. Organizations can elevate human-centered strategy through the following methods:Collaborative workshops: Bringing stakeholders together to co-create clarity accelerates alignment and enhances buy-in. Visual tools, design sprints, and collaborative frameworks are effective for simplifying complex ideas and building consensus.Narrative and visualization: Translating strategy into compelling, accessible visuals and stories makes it easier for everyone to connect with the purpose behind the plan. Design assets and storytelling transform strategy from abstract ideas into inspiring, relatable messages.Develop buy-in from the start: Strategic plans reach their full potential only when followed by actionable, continuous alignment. Ensuring there’s support for ongoing execution and a willingness to adapt over time helps keep momentum alive.Consider an example from the healthcare sector, where a major professional association faced declining membership and financial strain. With new leadership in place, the organization sought a strategy that would stabilize its operations and enable growth. By conducting a thorough assessment, gathering input from stakeholders, and developing a comprehensive four-year plan, the organization transformed its trajectory. The results were clear: a 33 percent increase in revenue over three years, improved engagement, and renewed alignment around a shared vision. With a thoughtful strategy and commitment to people-driven activation, the association strengthened its role and impact in the healthcare industry.A successful strategy is one that people believe in and are motivated to carry forward. When leaders commit to creating clear, inclusive, and adaptable strategies, they set the stage for lasting impact. By centering on people and creating alignment across every level, organizations can build a resilient foundation for sustainable growth and transformation—driven by strategy, supported by people.

Drive Action With a People-Centered Approach to Strategic Planning

October 2022 - TD Magazine

Employee engagement and inclusion strategies should be interconnected.

View Engagement Through a DEI Lens

It’s ironic that successful self-leadership has more to do with others and less to do with self. I learned this later in life. The sooner you see it, the better for your career. Following are three lessons I learned from personal and professional experiences.Surprise #1: Serve a Cause Greater than SelfThe first surprise about self-leadership is that working for money, power, and fame is an unfulfilling pursuit. Frances Hesselbein says it succinctly: to serve is to live.Choose a career that helps others by bringing truth, goodness, or beauty into the world and you will find greater career satisfaction and contentment. From time to time, you will experience the joy that comes from seeing the efforts of your work directly improve the lives of others. Here are a few examples:The teacher who helps a student learn to read brings greater truth and goodness to the world.The landscape architect who designs aesthetically pleasing outdoor environments brings greater beauty to the world.The journalist who helps the public see both sides of a story brings greater truth to the world.The salesman who helps a customer find the right product or service to meet a real need brings greater goodness into the world.You should seek to serve others in these ways, too.Surprise #2: Get a Coach or Mentor(s)No world-class athlete gets to the top without the help of a coach or multiple coaches. We need other people to help us achieve our potential.For instance, each of us has blind spots. Your blind spot may be that you are argumentative or perhaps you don’t speak up when you should. Some people have a blind spot when it comes to not knowing when to end a conversation or meeting. Some managers have blind spots of being over-controlling, and others don’t interact enough with the people they are responsible for leading.The need for coaching and mentoring goes beyond needing to address our blind spots, though. We need experts to help us develop skills. When I left Wall Street to write a book and begin public speaking and teaching, I needed the help of Twyla Thompson, a top acting coach at the Actors Institute. Twyla taught me how to emotionally connect with an audience.On Wall Street, I had learned to turn off my emotions when communicating and I needed Twyla’s help to turn my emotions back on. She had me do exercises that included speaking to a group of acting students. I had to make eye contact with one student at a time and maintain eye contact until the student raised his or her hand to signal that he or she felt connected to me.Twyla’s colleague Gifford Booth would stand at the back of the room and yell, “Louder, louder,” as I spoke. He helped me see a blind spot I had: I was too soft spoken. I could never have learned these things on my own and I’m grateful that Twyla and Gifford helped me become a more effective speaker.#3: Be Intentional About Connecting With PeopleI learned the hard way that all people are hardwired to connect. Connect with God.  Connect with one another. When we don’t connect, we become dysfunctional. We feel lonely, which makes us more vulnerable to stress, anxiety, and depression.  Connection makes us healthier, happier, and more productive. It helps us grow in competence and character. It gets us through the inevitable difficult seasons we all experience in life, a lesson I learned as our family and friends helped us get through the three bouts of cancer my wife Katie experienced. Today, she is cancer free and thriving.Bottom line: You can be more successful in your career and life if you serve a cause greater than yourself, get coaches and/or mentors to help you learn and grow in competence and character, and be intentional about connecting with God, family, and friends. As you experience greater peace, hope, and joy that comes from having an abundance of connection in your life, you will discover wealth of even greater value.Is your workplace culture supporting your success with self-leadership? Join Michael Lee Stallard for the June 23 webcast, “Your Workplace Culture: Life-Giving or Draining the Life Out of You?” to learn about three predominant relational cultures in the workplace—and how each affects your productivity, health, and happiness.Editor’s Note: This post is adapted from Connection Culture: The Competitive Advantage of Shared Identity, Empathy and Understanding at Work. Read more on the Connection Culture website.

3 Surprising Ways to Succeed in Self-Leadership

 In my last post, I explored how certain personality differences--described by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®) assessment—give rise to an approach to work that is often confused with procrastination. MBTI preferences for either Perceiving (P) or Judging (J) describe how we organize the world, and at what point we want to make a final decision. The tendency of those preferring P to usually wait to make a final decision until close to the deadline—and thus begin the actual production portion of a project later—is often mistakenly labeled as procrastination. This behavior stems from the need to gather as much information as possible before closing off any options, not from a lackadaisical approach to work. Although often misunderstood, their most effective and efficient energy actually comes close to the deadline or end of the project. Those preferring Judging, on the other hand, are most efficient at the beginning of the project, and naturally employ a work style that incorporates making decisions and going into production mode much earlier in the process--a characteristic that our culture more frequently associates with productivity and efficiency. Within teams, simply knowing that these differences exist can pave the way toward a less stressful, more productive work environment that enables individuals to more fully leverage their natural talents. However, intellectualizing J/P differences is one thing, but actually implementing changes that allow team members to deploy both work styles within the same project is quite another issue. Individuals can achieve top-notch results employing either approach, but teams can also encounter major problems if these radically different work styles aren’t effectively integrated. Making Team Tradeoffs That Don’t Sacrifice Individual Effectiveness Often in teambuilding we talk about “flexing” one’s preferences to work more effectively with someone with an opposite preference, which involves operating outside one’s preferred style. For most of us this is a growing experience and a necessary part of career development. However, while flexing works quite well when bridging Introversion/Extraversion differences, for example, it is actually quite difficult to flex your work style between Judging and Perceiving without diminishing your effectiveness. Those preferring J who try to operate within a P work style will perform below their abilities, and vice versa. Rather than expecting individuals to flex their natural styles, teams need to make structural trade-offs that will allow every member of the team to work within his or her own preferences. Agreeing on Deadlines The most immediate area where this can be applied involves deadlines and milestones. Both J and P preferences find deadlines to be a helpful tool in accomplishing goals. Yet the way that those preferring P approach deadlines may be confusing to J-preferring colleagues, and vice versa. Those who prefer P are averse to the kind of arbitrary or fake deadlines which are sometimes imposed by those with J preferences for the purpose of motivating their P colleagues going into production mode earlier in the process. Meanwhile, those who prefer J might use deadlines as a tool to keep a project on track and are usually motivated to complete projects significantly before the deadline to avoid the last minute rush. Those preferring P tend to view deadlines as markers indicating the point at which something truly must be completed. This also helps them determine when they need to start working on the project in order to maximize their productivity—which for them is closer to the deadline. Consequently, if J-preferring team members try to impose arbitrary deadlines on P-preferring colleagues as markers or motivators to keep a project on pace, they’ll know they really have more time, and will view these as “fake” and often won’t take them seriously. Furthermore, this creates a situation that likely forces those with P preferences to complete tasks early in the project, when they’re less productive because they haven’t had sufficient time to explore all the possibilities for the projects direction. You can get better results from P-preferring colleagues by setting deadlines that accurately reflect a project’s realities, allowing them to plan their work in such a way that lets them get most of the project done at the end, when they’re most productive. When negotiating milestone dates, be sure that they are visibly tied to the real-life consequences of not meeting that deadline. If, for example, a client needs a set of blueprints by a certain date, the milestones should reflect the actual steps that need to be taken in order to make that happen--not just the J-preferences need to complete a project significantly before the actual deadline to allow time for revision. Accepting a Larger View of What Constitutes “Reality” On the flip side, those preferring P must appreciate that their J-preferring colleagues operate most efficiently on a more scheduled timeline. What’s more, they must respect the fact that some J preference team members may not do their best work when handed a project at the last minute. So, if you must deliver a set of blueprints to a J-preferring colleague for review or iteration, understand that they really need to do this earlier in the process in order to offer their best, most efficient work. Adopt the point of view that this is not an arbitrarily early deadline, but rather one that is necessary to ensure the quality of the project. Be willing to set and adhere to milestones that accommodate the J’s need for more structure, and earlier project completion. Bottom Line: Don’t Ask a Pea Factory to Produce Carrots Furthermore, a P-preferring manager working with a predominantly J-preferring team must take into account that last minute changes to a project may have a profoundly negative effect on the group’s ability to deliver excellent results. J-preferring individuals tend to work along a more even pace, accomplishing a great deal of a project’s tasks near the beginning of the process. Throwing a last-minute curve ball at a team that primarily prefers P might be okay, because they don’t go fully into production mode until the end of a project. In other words, they’ve been spending their time getting their ducks in a row, and in manufacturing parlance, the “factory” hasn’t yet opened. A predominantly J-preferring team, on the other hand, will have likely gone into production mode much earlier, so significant changes in direction can’t occur late in a project. It’s like asking a factory to produce canned carrots when it’s already started producing peas. If you want carrots, ask for them before the factory turns on its conveyor belts.

Brokering Peace in the War Over Deadlines

In the talent development field, we talk a lot about “getting a seat at the table.” The idea is that the talent development function of an organization should be aligned strategically with the mission of the business or organization, and its head (such as the chief learning officer, or CLO) should be at the same level as other senior executives (like the chief information officer and the chief marketing officer). Regardless of the title used, the head of talent development needs to be a part of the strategic leadership team.But every executive “seat” needs to be filled with a strategic leader in its respective discipline. So, how do you make the leap from training manager to CLO? Well, there are three areas you should pay particular attention to as you plan for your development and your leap into the executive suite: technical skills, business savvy, and strategic leadership. Let’s look at each.Technical SkillsEach person in the “c-suite” brings to the table their professional background and expertise. And even at the highest levels of executive leadership, they’re still called on to provide that expertise in leading the enterprise. In talent development, that means the CLO needs to have a clear understanding of—and experience in—the various functions of that department, including assessment, design and development, andragogy, measurement, knowledge management, and more. You probably won’t be an expert in every aspect of the talent development field, but having a good handle on each one is vital to your role as an executive.So, how do you get this expertise? Here are some questions to ask yourself. Have you done a professional credential like ATD’s Certified Professional in Talent Development (CPTD®) or the Associate Professional in Talent Development (APTD®)? Or perhaps a certificate program? Are you engaged with your local ATD chapter? Do you keep up to date with the latest trends in the field found in magazines, journals, and books? In short, how engaged are you with the profession’s body of knowledge?Technical skills are one piece of the developmental ladder to the executive suite. Let’s look at the others.Business SavvyWhat do you call a member of the US Air Force who spends their entire career on the ground, never setting foot in a plane? Airman. Everyone is an “airman,” regardless of what specialty they hold and perform. Why? Because a key to cohesiveness and mission performance is that everyone understands the mission and embraces the organizational culture.What do you know about your enterprise’s mission beyond your own contribution to it? For example, if you are a leadership trainer for a nationwide homebuilder, do you understand the dynamics of that field? Do you know how land is acquired and planned, how homes are constructed and financed, how they’re sold, and how customers are serviced? If you’re going to move into an executive role, you will need to understand the context in which you operate—and understand the people and culture surrounding you—if you’re going to make meaningful contributions to the leadership of the business.Strategic LeadershipLeadership comes in two varieties: interpersonal and strategic. Interpersonal leadership centers on employee engagement, performance management, interpersonal communications, and more. It is a management function. Strategic leadership, on the other hand, is focused on the direction of the business or organization into the future—into the unknown. Strategic leaders need to be able to anticipate new trends and developments, create new solutions and innovations, and situate the business into the greater society. Effective strategic leaders relate to people, are highly self-aware, embrace authenticity, examine issues systemically (not in a vacuum), and achieve results.How do you develop your strategic leadership skills? The first step is awareness—what are your strengths and weaknesses? Where do you excel and in which areas do you need to improve? Evaluations—for example, a 360-degree assessment—can give you insights and help you to create a development plan. Universities, companies, and professional organizations offer training in strategic development skills. And, books specifically written for the developing executive are all means you can use to elevate your strategic leadership game.SummaryIt’s easy to get trapped in our technical expertise as we grow into our profession. After all, that’s what we get paid to do, right? But if we want to move beyond growing and we want to develop to later career stages, we also need to ensure our understanding of the business environment (business savvy) and strategic leadership skills are highly developed, as well. As Marshall Goldsmith reminds us, “What got you here won’t get you there.”

Crossing The Executive Threshold: Four Areas You Should Be Developing

When an employee decides to take another job, should an employer make a counteroffer, usually in the form of a pay increase, in the hope of retaining that employee?

Do Counteroffers Make Sense?

The Silver TsunamiHere's a sobering statistic that should keep every C-suite executive awake at night: 10,000 baby boomers are retiring every day in the US alone. That's not just people walking out the door, it's decades of institutional knowledge and hard-earned expertise evaporating into thin air.This Silver Tsunami isn't a distant threat. It's here, swirling around us right now. APQC’s recent survey of 1,000 knowledge management (KM) professionals across industries revealed that 51 percent of the enterprise workforce will retire or leave within five years. That’s half the organizational brain trust. Gone.The Boiling FrogRemember the parable of the boiling frog? The creature doesn't notice the water heating up gradually until it's too late to jump out. That's exactly what's happening to businesses today. While 58 percent of C-level executives and 51 percent of board members express concern about knowledge loss from departing retirees, the response has been glacially slow.The most damning finding? A staggering 92 percent of organizations don't capture knowledge on a regular basis. They are literally watching their competitive advantage walk out the door, day after day.Quill and PapyrusThe few companies attempting knowledge capture are stuck in the Stone Age. The survey revealed that 53 percent still rely on manual capture and documentation methods—essentially digital versions of quill and papyrus. Picture this: 30 percent of organizations wait until employees are literally heading for the exit door to capture their knowledge. Another 23 percent conduct last-minute elicitation interviews, which are typically rushed and shallow. Even worse, 37 percent depend on informal people-to-people transfers.These antiquated approaches are neither scalable nor sustainable—they're business malpractice.AI: Opportunity and ProblemEnter AI—both the solution and the problem rolled into one disruptive package. The opportunity is enormous: AI can automate knowledge capture, analyze patterns in expert decision-making, and create searchable repositories of institutional wisdom at unprecedented speed and scale.But here's the rub—the survey found that nine in 10 of respondents aren't leveraging AI to automate KM. And there's a reason: trust. Organizations are terrified of AI-generated answers that could be incorrect or non-compliant. It's a classic catch-22: the technology that could solve the knowledge crisis is paralyzed by accuracy concerns. No wonder 95 percent of AI pilots are failing to deliver business ROI, according to recent MIT research.KM and AI: BFFs for Business ValueAI automates knowledge management, and knowledge management makes AI trustworthy. This symbiotic relationship works because robust content management practices ensure AI has clean, accurate, well-governed data to work with. Meanwhile, AI handles the heavy lifting of knowledge automation to speed up the entire knowledge capture, retention, publishing, and optimization process.BFFs in ActioneGain’s Fortune 500 and Global 1000 clients are already striking gold with the combined power of AI and knowledge management:A global financial services corporation enhanced first contact resolution rates by 36 percent and cut onboarding duration by 40 percent through AI-powered knowledge platforms.A leading utility eliminated knowledge silos and sped up knowledge creation 10X while improving search success 6X.A fast-growing SaaS enterprise boosted contact center representative confidence by 60 percent and self-help utilization by 30 percent.A major federal government department serving 25 million citizens saw their Forrester CX Index ranking rise by a third in a single year.A massive federal agency redirected 70 percent of inbound calls to AI-enabled virtual support while slashing case resolution time by 25 percent.These aren't incremental improvements—they're transformational results that land these organizations in the elite 5 percent of companies succeeding with AI.Beat the Clock (and the Competition)!Your experts are retiring. The clock is ticking. Every day you delay implementing AI-enabled knowledge capture is another day of irreplaceable expertise walking out your door forever.Organizations that act now to leverage the power of AI and KM will emerge as the winners. They'll turn the knowledge exodus into a knowledge edge, transforming the Silver Tsunami from an existential threat into a competitive advantage.The question isn't whether you can afford to invest in AI-enabled knowledge capture and retention. The question is whether you can afford not to. Because in today’s knowledge-centered economy, there are no participation trophies—only winners and losers.The tsunami is here. Will you surf it or be swept away by it?

Strike Gold in the Silver Tsunami With AI-Enabled Knowledge Retention

Here’s the brutal reality: Most HR teams are often playing defense when they should be playing chess.Just like in chess, a winning HR strategy means thinking several moves ahead, anticipating shifts, and shaping outcomes before they arrive.The most strategic teams already operate this way. We call them HR Anticipators—and they drive 33 percent more high-quality leaders and 2X greater likelihood of top-tier financial performance for their companies.The difference isn’t resources—it’s mindset. While HR Reactor teams scramble to fill today’s gaps, Anticipators are already building tomorrow’s leaders.So, what sets them apart? It comes down to four nonnegotiable behaviors that the best HR teams execute relentlessly. The Four Behaviors That Define HR Anticipators 1. They Align Talent Strategy With Tomorrow’s Business HR Reactors fill vacancies as they arise, taking chances that the right person is in the pipeline or that they strike gold with an external hire.HR Anticipators take a different path. They map three- to five-year business strategies directly to the leadership capabilities they’ll need, using it to guide talent and development decisions now.The payoff? A 24 percent higher success rate for high-potential leaders who deliver real results after promotion. In today’s fast-paced environment, that speed to impact is critical.This foresight and its results don’t go unnoticed. Anticipators are 2.1X more likely to have executive sponsorship—crucial backing that fuels programs with the resources and influence they need to succeed.To get there, Anticipators create nested alignment by tying every leadership capability to specific business outcomes at each level. This builds the bench strength they need to support long-term strategy.If your talent strategy only reaches next quarter, you’re already behind.2. They Forecast Capability Gaps Before They Become Crises Accurate forecasting helps avoid costly missteps and limits the damage when disaster does strike.That’s why Anticipators are 2.7X more likely to use systematic forecasting. Placing talent in the wrong roles is expensive, but it’s avoidable. The key is to plan early and often. These teams run scenario planning monthly or quarterly, not just once a year. This is where they gain an edge. When disruption hits, they have leaders ready, instead of scrambling to find someone “good enough.” Consider this your wake-up call. By the time you feel the leadership gap, it’s already too late.3. They Design Development That Solves Real Business Problems In the HR evolution CEOs are calling for, generic box-checking leadership workshops are out.What’s in? Development tied directly to strategic initiatives—the kind that delivers measurable business outcomes and is tailored to each leader’s current needs and future growth.When development solves real business problems, it becomes a multiplier: Every dollar builds both leader capability and business results.4. They Measure What Matters Anticipators focus their measurement where it matters most: business outcomes.They’ve ditched vanity metrics like completion rates and satisfaction scores in favor of power metrics that resonate across the business: readiness rates, time-to-productivity, and revenue per leader.For example, Anticipators are 2.3X more likely to measure actual succession program effectiveness and results, rather than just participation.If you can’t connect your talent initiatives to bottom-line impact, you’re measuring the wrong things. Conclusion HR faces a critical choice: anticipate or get left behind. Every day in reactive mode is a missed chance to build the leadership advantage your organization needs.Becoming an HR Anticipator demands a full mindset shift: from order-taker to strategic advisor, from filling roles to building capability, from activity metrics to business impact. That’s how you elevate your role and claim the chessboard.The shift from Reactor to Anticipator is proven—and the business impact is waiting. Ready to transform your HR impact? Get the complete Anticipator framework in our HR Insights Report 2025. Read the full report.

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