Harvard Business Review: MMORPGs as "Leadership’s Online Labs"
"Leading 25 guild members in a six-hour raid on Illidan the Betrayer’s temple fortress is hardly the same as running a complex global organization," write Byron Reeves, Thomas W. Malone, and Tony O’Driscoll in this month's Harvard Business Review. "For starters, the stakes are just a bit higher in business. But don’t dismiss online games as mere play. The best ones differ from traditional video games as much as universities do from one-room schoolhouses." The feature goes through the many ways in which online games like World of Warcraft and EVE Online are shaping leadership experiences (e.g., they encourage risk taking, flexible positions, and speedy decisions) as well as what elements of the online game environment can be taken into the real-world to encourage better existing leadership.
"Some characteristics of that environment—for example, immediate compensation for successful completion of a project with nonmonetary incentives, such as points for commitment and game performance—represent more than mere foreshadowing of how leadership might evolve," explain the authors.
In other words while many business leaders today may not be willing to hire someone who's biggest résumé padder is "Guild Leader in the Eredar realm," they are interested in how to make their businesses more conducive to enabling strong leaders, which, also, is what many gamers asked for.
All three researchers have been looking in that direction, but Reeves in particular has an interest in adding game-like elements to real-world work. One major option he's pursuing is to use non-monetary reward systems throughout the office. In-game examples, like dragon kill points (DKP), can act as powerful incentives.
Incentive systems used by leaders affect motivation in several ways.
- Dividing up the winnings from a quest immediately after it’s completed—or, occasionally, awarding loot to someone even as the battle rages—creates a strong connection between effort and reward.
- Furthermore, DKP systems enable individuals to see in advance what they are likely to get when their team succeeds (more DKPs equal greater access to team booty), sharpening the incentive to join the effort. Even when it’s clear they’re unlikely to share in the spoils of a raid, players know that their participation will earn them points for future use.
- Finally, because individual compensation is based on objective performance data that can be automatically gathered and processed, and then publicly posted in real time, the reward system is generally viewed as fair.
In a study at a Fortune 100 company, virtual currency and rewards like publicly visible badges were used to both influence how quickly workers opened emails and to reduce unnecessary email.
These elements so far are much more in line with online games than open-ended virtual worlds, which the authors acknowledge in a side bar. While they say worlds like Second Life offer the opportunity to experiment with businesses or train, they don't have the same incentive structures as worlds like World of Warcraft.
The other major element the researchers look at to bring into the real world, hyper-transparency of information with data-rich dashboards, I think comes from both sides. True, one of the biggest examples that people are fond of citing is Joi Ito's World of Warcraft UI (and he's been espousing the benefits of the MMORPG for entrepreneurs for years), even more is already being done in worlds like Second Life, OpenSim, and entirely new environments to make data easier and more fun to process.
For example, earlier this year IBM and Implenia launched a 3D data center in OpenSim as Implenia was working on a standalone environment to monitor building statuses in 3D. Others, like Meru Networks, are working on more focused applications, and still others are working on more fun applications. I can think of plenty of IT workers who'd enjoy their day a lot more using Swinburne University's network monitoring tools built on top of Quake.
There are challenges, though. Plenty of business leaders are and will continue to be resistant to the idea of integrating games with the workplace, in part because the environments, rewards, and risks are just so different. As the authors--and others, like Gartner's Steve Prentice--point out, there's a generational shift coming, though. Managers will have to adapt or, eventually, be replaced.
Who knows, maybe an article in the Harvard Business Review will help change their minds.
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