I didn’t see that coming.

5-12-26

𝐒𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐮𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐝 showed up in my inbox recently. Game sales. Game sales, which always make me happy, were not the unexpected part.  It was who was buying that made me stop and pay attention. For 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦 𝑡𝑤𝑜 colleges or universities purchasing 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐂𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞- 𝐀 𝐆𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧®, one business was buying it.

I didn’t see that coming. It just never occurred to me. But the more I sat with it, the more it made perfect sense. Higher education institutions are organizations too.

They have departments that don’t communicate well with each other. They have staff who feel unheard. They have leadership transitions, budget pressures, and cultures that either make people want to stay or quietly start updating their résumés.

They have the same dynamics as any corporation. They just don’t always get approached as if they do. And maybe that’s exactly why it’s resonating. Because someone finally showed up with a tool designed for the real, messy, human complexity of how people work together and the people in higher education recognized themselves in it immediately. It got me thinking about all the places where culture work is desperately needed but rarely sought.

Places that don’t think of themselves as the typical client for this kind of solution. 𝐇𝐨𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐬. 𝐍𝐨𝐧𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐟𝐢𝐭𝐬. 𝐆𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐬. 𝐌𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐳𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬. 𝐒𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐬 𝐟𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐬. 𝐅𝐚𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬. 𝐼𝑓 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑡𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑔𝑎𝑚𝑒 (𝑜𝑟 𝑐ℎ𝑒𝑐𝑘 𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑒𝑏 𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑒) 𝑦𝑜𝑢’𝑙𝑙 𝑠𝑒𝑒 𝑖𝑡 𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑖𝑡 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑏𝑒 𝑐𝑢𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑚𝑖𝑧𝑒𝑑, 𝑠𝑜…𝑣𝑜𝑖𝑙𝑎!) Anywhere human beings work together toward a common goal, and sometimes spectacularly fail to do so, there’s a culture conversation waiting to happen.

The game found its way into colleges because someone was willing to think differently about where culture challenges actually live.