Don’t be surprised if your next boss admits that he learned some of his management skills playing World of Warcraft. As companies search for the next generation of talent, one Silicon Valley startup thinks they should look for executives who play online video games.
Corporate software maker Seriosity on Thursday released a lengthy report detailing some of the ways in which people who play massively multiplayer online role-playing games are developing skills vital to business success. And the company believes these types of games are shaping the next generation of corporate leaders.
While the idea isn’t new, the study provides a detailed look at some of the ways in which gamers are learning to collaborate, stay organized, and take risks. For dedicated players, it could prove that the hours they spend each week managing their fellow warriors, mages, and priests might actually help them conquer the corporate world as well.
“Businesses are waking up to the importance of games,” said Seriosity General Manager Simon Roy. “[Gamers] bring the same neurons to work as they do to game playing.”
The Palo Alto, California-based company, which teamed up with IBM and researchers from Stanford and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for the study, found that logic and visualization skills, as well as creative thinking and collaborative abilities, are widely applicable in both domains.
“The values you expose in the game are in many places very valid and respected… whether you are online or offline,” said Mr. Roy. “[Many] are generic people management issues.”
The research could be considered somewhat self-serving for Seriosity, which makes productivity software—inspired by multiplayer games—for the enterprise.
The report emphasized the importance of online environments in facilitating the development of leadership qualities. Games make it easy to collect and see information about a user’s performance and offer multiple ways in which players can communicate and collaborate. And the speed at which gamers play and interact gives them a chance to develop their skills quickly.
“A person playing a game for several years can get [the equivalent of] 10 years of management experience,” Mr. Roy said.
Another interesting point is that experienced gamers are often used to working with technology that is much more advanced that the type they encounter in the business world. According to Seriosity, businesses should look to games for ways in which to make leadership easier and more effective.
“What we’ve found is that success as a business leader may depend on skills as a gamer,” IBM Almaden Director of Services Research Jim Spohrer said in a statement.