Virtual Leadership Training

Most of people get promoted into a leadership or management positions feel that they did not receive enough training. While some training can help, it is very difficult to train for the constant "putting out the fires" scenarios. Most of the learning is from on the job experience. Here is an article on video games providing those experiences of being in a leadership position. Interesting.

From MMO To CEO
Matthew Kirdahy
Forbes.com

http://www.forbes.com/leadership/innovation/2008/07/16/leadership-online-videogames-lead-cx_mk_0716ceo.html

Sean Conover has two jobs. One is at a computer forensics lab in suburban New Jersey; the other is in a fantastical galaxy inhabited by 250,000 intelligent life forms driven by power and greed. In one place, he takes orders. In the other, he gives them.

There are many more like Conover, and with good reason. It's in this virtual space where tomorrow's business leaders are being born. Mom may mock videogames no more.

The experience of playing online role-playing games can mold and shape real-world business leaders. Any of the tens of millions of people playing "World of Warcraft," "EverQuest" or "EVE Online" will tell you these games are about serving a greater purpose. Sure, you're free to explore at will and engage enemies from dungeons to mountain tops, but the majority of players with common goals band together to take perilous risks and build empires.

When Conover gets home from his 9 to 5 job, he logs onto a virtual world as "Darius Johnson," chief executive of "Goonfleet," a corporation composed of more than 2,800 players in "EVE."

The leadership experience has challenged Conover the same way the modern CEO is challenged. He worries about economics, employee morale, production, training and even a succession plan, which he's devising. (After all, the next guy has to be able to weather the storm too.)

There are hundreds of helpful online games out there. Gamers will pay as much as $15 per month to play. Some games are offered for free; others only ask players to pay for various in-game elements to enhance the experience, one that may ready you for the C suite.

According to a May Harvard Business Review article, titled "Leadership's Online Labs," there are an estimated 50 million registered online gamers worldwide in the genre commonly called "massively multiplayer online role-playing games" (MMORPGs or MMOs). "World of Warcraft" maintains the largest subscriber base at 10 million. "EVE" has 250,000. The report also cites the Palo Alto Research Center, saying these gamers--who are 85% men and are, on average, 27 years old--spend 22 hours a week playing.

The article's authors, Byron Reeves (Stanford University), Thomas W. Malone (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Tony O'Driscoll (North Carolina State), found that leadership in online games offers a sneak preview of tomorrow's business world. In fact, they said these games exhibit leadership abilities crucial to the future of business.

Among these games, "EVE" is structured most like the real world. Groups of players that come together to reach a common goal are called "corporations," which can then form alliances with other corporations.


Sometimes, reality mimics fiction--or at least videogames. CCP, the publisher of EVE, formed a nine-member Council of Stellar Management, to which the players elected Conover. The council functions much like a board of directors for the game. CCP even hired an economist full time to study the behaviors of EVE.

Conover admitted that while the game's business environment, set in outer space, behaves like one in the real world, there are some major differences. "EVE" and most games like it encourage risk-taking, but "you can take risks in a videogame that in business [would make] the shareholders revolt," he said.

Then there's the obvious.

"Essentially, my job is to make sure [the members] are having fun," Conover added. "For some it's mining an asteroid, for most it's shooting people," he said.

Hilmar Veigar Petursson, CEO of CCP, said the game is meant to develop a person's core leadership skill set. "EVE" caters to a hardcore audience. "There isn't a lot of difference [between] what you can apply within the game and out of it," he said. "It's more about social skills than gaming skills. It's very hard to stay on top."

Michael Morhaime, CEO of Blizzard Entertainment, owned by Activision Blizzard, maker of "World of Warcraft," said his game provides people with a chance to assume leadership roles when they might not have had the opportunity in real life. This is apparent in the formation of guilds, where communication is paramount. Players band together to form groups for economic and social reasons.

Morhaime said that for this reason, he thought fans who enjoyed the single-player experience of previous Blizzard titles would shy away from "World of Warcraft." He found the opposite to be true. "The reason behind that is it's such a social experience," he said.

These games can also fuel the entrepreneurial fire.

Some gamers, like Trey Ratcliff, may be inspired by the experience and start their own company. Ratcliff is a former "EVE" player who is now CEO and co-founder of John Galt Games. He said he always had an entrepreneurial spirit and even ran a company before he played "EVE," yet he drew on his experiences in gaming and as a professional consultant to pursue a leadership role in business.

Ratcliff said his company is developing an online game called "Web Wars." He's keeping the major details quiet, but did say it would be free to play, with in-game options to spend money. Plus, it's sure to incorporate all of the leadership challenges the genre presents to online gamers worldwide. "Every human has this genetic predisposition as a leader, artist, whatever it might be," Ratcliff said. "You can nurture that nature much quicker with MMO's. There were all these great leaders out there [who] never had a vehicle to have them rise to the top."

Until now.