Harvard BR Article on MMORPG Developing Real World Leaders By: Yu-kai Chou
Under: Fun, Life Coaching, Undergraduate
Future Delivery is about productive gaming. The more hours you play a game, the more successful your real life would be. There is a whole industry called “Serious Gaming” (obviously coined by non-gamers, because real hardcore gamers would never let that pass) that is about using gaming in real world functions, such as educational games for kids. I personally believe there are some games, although a big inefficient use of addicted time, can develop an array of real world skill sets (like Starcraft and Utopia). However, many other games are just a brain mush, like addictinggames.com (don’t even click on the link!)
A recent article on Harvard Business Review, “Leaderships Online Labs” by Byron Reeves, Thomas W. Malone, and Tony O’Driscoll, talks about how virtual world games like World of Warcraft can develop real world leadership skills. They gathered hardcore virtual world players with over 50,000 hours of accumulated experience and observed their patterns. The article claims that virtual world leaders have similar functions to business world leaders, including “recruiting, assessing, motivating, rewarding, and retaining talented and culturally diverse team members; identifying and capitalizing on the organization’s competitive advantage; analyzing multiple streams of constantly changing and often incomplete data in order to make quick decisions that have wide-randing and sometimes long-lasting effects.” One key observation they had was that, the leader often switches between people swiftly, and that a good leader is not always determined from their abilities, but the work environment. This shows that, often times, instead of finding the greatest “leaders,” it is just as important to create an environment where they can lead effectively. I have seen superstars do sluggish work when the environment is not motivating. I have also seen very average people become superstars because of an environment that promotes great work. That is why company culture is so important.
While I advice folks to limit their game play time, when you do play games, keep 2 things in mind:
1. Make sure it is a game that can develop some useful skill sets in the real world, such as strategizing, coordinating people, and creative problem-solving, instead of constantly clicking B as fast as you can. Eye-hand coordination is not as useful here in real life.
2. Whenever you play a multi-player game, try to lead as often as possible. Constantly figure out new ways to become a more effective leader. Understand how the gaming culture is similar to the working culture, and try to adapt the gaming culture into your real life leadership style.
In FD, people do serious work, just like hardcore gamers who destroy their monitors when they get killed in a game of Counterstrike, but our language towards each other is very casual and game like. People joke around all the time and things go crazy, but at the end, it’s about beating the competitors and achieving your objectives.
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