Results

You look at the clock and can’t believe what time it is.  Still, you can’t stop now.  Your team members are counting on you.  You put in the extra time to get the items they need, then head off to the meeting.  Everyone is agreed as to what needs to be accomplished.  There are tons of different skill sets, varied backgrounds, seemingly insurmountable personality conflicts, and yet you all manage to get the job done before the deadline.  Everyone gets a bonus on the spot and then you call it a night.  But you’ll be back tomorrow because as much time and effort as it takes, you and your group love this place.  It isn’t work.  It isn’t even real life.  It’s the world of massively multi-player online role playing games.

The appeal of MMORPGs has been likened to addiction.  But perhaps, more accurately, it fills a void in the lives of many modern cube residents.  In an economy that is built on services and intangible products, the workforce is turning to the only place that offers quick rewards for specific task completion.  Games like EverQuest, World of Warcraft, and Lord of the Rings Online offer a world where a mundane person can become anything they want (strong, smart, wise, agile) and then rewards them in a quick fashion.  Behaviorists would point to the addictive qualities of a world where someone can be immersed in colorful landscapes, surrounded by music and environmental sounds that are pleasing, and the ability to be immediately rewarded for efforts instead of having to wait for an annual review.

Problems arise when players fail to draw the line between the game and life.  People with significant potential are finding themselves drawn into MMORPGs and leaving the real world behind.  Although not frequent, there are documented cases of MMORPG players being fired from jobs due to their addiction.  This isn’t the video game clerk who games in the shop between customers.  This is the MIT graduate making almost six-figures whose absenteeism rates are through the roof and consistently misses project deadlines due to time spent in the MMORPG world.  Quite literally: Game Over. 

However, there is some good to be gained from MMORPGs.  In an age where more and more commerce is done via internet, collaborative software, and chat rooms, skills that MMORPG players have developed can come in exceedingly handy.  As summarized in a recent Harvard Business Online article, “Players who lead teams in these online worlds hone the skills that they will need as business leaders in the future.”  Most of these gamers master technologies with an aptitude that business entities envy: building websites, managing chat servers, and developing user interface tool programs to facilitate game play.  Communicating with emotion so that comments are not misconstrued, managing radically different personalities to accomplish goals, the having the organizational skills required to run a guild are all traits of a successful gamer; traits that can be put to use in management positions.

Human Resource managers are starting to take notice.  A recent New Learning Playbook’s article points out, “Essentially, they [MMORPG players] are facing the same organizational challenges as many of our leaders in today’s FORTUNE 500 firm, namely they are:
• In constant recruitment mode
• Experimenting with being creative about motivating and rewarding top talent
• Using the latest collaborative tools so global teams can be constantly connected to each other
• Incorporating more personalization into day-to-day interactions with team players” 
More to the point, MMORPG players are experiencing the same challenges and meeting them successfully.

Yes, it’s a game.  Billions of dollars are not won or lost in the span of a gaming session.  But if managers could tap into the motivational methods that have people devoting hours of their lives to gaming, wouldn’t that be a win?   By studying the effective leadership skills of successful gamers, businesses stand to gain a lot in retaining a creative and skilled workforce.  Proper management and motivation isn’t based on yearly reviews and bonuses anymore.  Rewards should be immediate but need not be strictly monetary.  Environments shouldn’t be bleak, they should be beautiful.  There is something to be said for valuing your employees and rewarding that unique skill they have that helps the team shine.  MMORPGs are creating a new breed of management strategy, one that revolves around dynamic teams dedicating themselves to something greater than a paycheck.

Thursday, June 12th, 2008 You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

By Alicen Hogan