This month’s Harvard Business Review finally spoke to a long-standing question/concern that many of us in mid-career (read 40-something or older) have likely pondered: When will the generation that grew up on computers and video games learn to apply the unique skills gained through countless hours in front of a screen and on a keyboard for career and economic gain?  Of course, the dark side of this question is, has this younger generation evolved skills from all of that time clicking beyond those of the rest of us to gain a competitive advantage in the job market?  (Asked just a bit tongue in cheek.)

The answers to these compelling issues might just be hinted at in a fascinating article entitled Leadership’s Online Labs by Bryon Reeves, Thomas W. Malone and Tony O’Driscoll in the May, 2008 issue of HBR.   

The authors submit that the leadership and collaboration skills developed at hyper-speed in the massively multiplayer on-line role-playing games (e.g. World of Warcraft, Eve Online, EverQuest etc.) may prove valuable in what they view as the emerging business and leadership environment.  From the article:

"The organizational and strategic challenges facing players who serve as game leaders are familiar ones: 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-ranging and sometimes long lasting effects.  But these management challenges are heightened in on-line games because an organization must be built and sustained with a volunteer workforce in a fluid and digitally mediated environment."

The authors connect the attributes of the on-line environment to their perspective on emerging leadership challenges: fluid workforces, self-organizing and collaborative teams and decentralized, non-hierarchical leadership, the demand for instantaneous decisions with imperfect information and the need to iterate and adapt on strategy.  They even identify an environment where individuals easily flow between the role of leader and individual contributor depending upon the circumstances and skills required for the challenge at-hand.

Perhaps the most compelling link to these environments as prospective leadership development labs comes in the form of feedback.  Players are constantly evaluated on performance with ratings posted and visible for all to see.   Lead a few too many unsuccessful raids on an enemy’s encampment and watch your ratings plummet and your authority melt right in front of your eyes.  The fluidity of the emerging working environment is underscored by the ease with which team members either assert their own leadership intentions or cast their vote by leaving one group in search of a winning team.

The bottom-line for now:

A wise and good friend once indicated that you can either choose to participate in the events of your time or you risk getting left behind.  While to most it might seem implausible or even laughable that the leaders of tomorrow are applying skills developed from years of what we viewed as "wasting time" by playing on-line games, it merits some consideration.  Certainly most organizations completely drop the ball on effectively identifying and developing leadership talent, and my own experience and research indicates that where most (new) leaders struggle is in the area of soft skills and feedback.  You don’t learn how to lead from a book or sitting in a classroom at graduate school, so who’s to say that the on-line gaming environment is not an outstanding and risk-free way to develop leadership acumen. 

Next time you walk past your 14 year old playing X-Box on-line and he’s leading a team of individuals from 5 countries on a mission to capture the prize, consider that he might just be honing the skills he’ll need to support you in your old age.  OK, I’ve got to quit writing now.  I have to get back to negotiating a merger between two guilds so that we can combine our strengths and defeat the monster blocking our path.  I hope my wife understands that this is hardcore leadership research!