75 function. The tasks, duties, and responsibilities of the job in question usually dominate job postings and descriptions, for reasons of both clarity and legality. Potential hires must, after all, know what work will be expected of them. At the same time, however, organizations would do well to include in such descriptions the meaning and purpose workers can expect to draw from the tasks in question. A content marketer’s job, for instance, might list functions such as “oversee social media presence,” “act as lead editor,” “cultivate relationships with influencers,” and so forth, but it ought also include organizational flavor notes such as “end human trafficking in the chocolate trade,” or “end illiteracy in India,” or “racially reconcile the city of Atlanta.” Casting this kind of vision from the beginning of a team member’s relationship with the organization will not only begin the work of inspiration and visceral engagement early in the hiring process, but will also help ensure that new hires are already aligned with the vision of the company. And a third (but by no means final) implication is that even a welldesigned organization will have its detractors. Rosewater, in a twentyyear retrospective of his time at Magic, reminds designers that “[i]f everyone likes your game but no one loves it, it will fail.”63 Preferences, personalities, ideals, and values vary wildly from one individual and from one group to another. Therefore any design, he argues, which provokes a strong positive response at one end of the spectrum will likely provoke a strong negative response at the other. Games which are suffered by all will be loved by none, therefore “stop worrying about evoking a negative response and start worrying about evoking a strong response.”64 Likewise, organizations with a strong vision and a strong internal culture will likely repel some customers and some potential team members, and this is not necessarily cause for concern, since it is better to have a handful of devotees than a crowd of acquaintances. Gamers get a bad rap these days. The image of the tubby neckbeard sipping Mountain Dew by the light of a World of Warcraft screen in his mom’s basement is one we won’t shake quickly, though men like Joe Manganiello, Vin Diesel, and Travis Willingham are doing their best to debunk it. But if McGonigal’s conclusions are accurate, then our
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