A couple of observations if I may about some of the finer points in your article:

1. The sports analogy of allowing a cricketer who scores a century then being able to play baseball with a cricket bat is not quite instructive enough. II you make a century in cricket, it allows you to appear as a guest on “Dancing with the Stars.” Same theory, but this is the actual practice.
2. Similarly, the same dynamic exists in the business/professional world. Excelling as a leader in a business environment gives you the ability to be invited to be a member of the Circus Oz board or on a government advisory panel or to speak at Davos. The achievement principle is ingrained to the way we reward and recognise already.
3. The idea of “carry-over” points from one job to another is troublesome. Lifetime achievements build up over a period of time and play a parallel role to performance while in an actual role. You can’t keep only trading on the past, because some people like to make their own individual assessment of the people around them, rather than just rely on reputation. As Eddie Murphy succinctly put it in Raw – “what have you done for me lately” – Currency is all important.
4. Let’s think of the carry-over points system from another angle. Should you carry over minus points from previous failures or poor experiences? A person’s reputation & status can change over time and it wouldn’t be fair and equitable to keep some sense of a permanent black mark. There’s plenty of social & criminology theory based on repatriating people who have spent time in jail. The thing is, people have the capacity for change. And along with self-improvement, so should people’s currency improve over time rather than be hindered or hampered by previous black marks.

The article is great food for thought and as we have discussed previously, using aspects of current game theory to give “tools” or “unlock” further insights is something that we should definitely be looking at incorporating into our online and physical learning approach.

John: “More minds is not just more volume of ideas but more variety.”. I see this power in action almost every day – that mindshare from a group of talented people is unbreakable. I hate this word, but it’s a true synergy. I also think the most important thing to keep in mind here is that it’s not only the number of people involved, but the variety of skills, backgrounds and viewpoints that are important. Innovation and new ideas that solve real problems happen on the fringes of the organisation, in the cross-section between divisions or discipline areas. Encourage communication throughout the organisation across divisions and your business will become an agile problem solver.