Management Training:
Seven Lessons for Management - RPGs as Management Courses
When life offers a chance to improvise on myself professionally, I tend to immediately jump on opportunities, especially when such opportunities come from a field totally unrelated to my profession (HR Management).
Role Playing has been considered one of the new-age development techniques, which gives a Company as well as role players (employees) an insight about organizational behavior. Notwithstanding the above, I myself however could never extract the benefits as many people/trainers claimed otherwise from such role-plays until now. However my recent experiences with a particular Role Playing Game helped me immensely in observing my own skill management set (below average for my standards). This role play helped me in defining some valuable skills as a 'Manager'. I am now working on these skills to break those plateau points of learning.
So which role Playing Game...???
Mass Effect 2 is newly launched Role Playing Game from Microsoft (Xbox). Broadly one can say that the player assumes the role of a mercenary who recruits some guys and saves the galaxy. To enter into details is what makes Mass Effect 2 different.
But then why it is different from other management titles in its genre? Through Mass Effect 2 you are given an opportunity to design your destiny to an extent which is immersive and reflective of you, and this opportunity was never otherwise offered before. You start as an individual who has to do the following:
a) Build up and develop your character with numerous choices for decision making, planning & execution during innumerable missions and conversations, where each has some minor value to add into your character building process.
b) Gather individuals and build a management team with special skills. It actually keeps a tab on how you are building the team throughout the game.
c) Keep your focus on final goal (galaxy saving Hero stuff).
d) And the final result will depend in what you did in all above. Gave me practical management experience in planning and strategy gone awry.
Now over the course of months I have played the game with different roles, different temperaments (yes! Game keeps checking that), different ethical choices and different priorities. Although subconsciously I was doing many things which are prerequisites of a successful Player (or as a Management Professional), yet I was not able to lay my hand on such subtle management skills of mine until today. Today is the day when I could save every single member of my management team from death due to consequences of my decisions throughout the game tenure.
Seven Lessons for Management As a Leader of my management Team, where I was following many quests but for one ultimate Goal, I could observe patterns and finally could distil Seven Lessons from my role-playing.
1) Value System is more deeply embedded in us than we know: Generally I am moderately cooperative professional with a fair sense of justice and occasional anger bouts. I also thought that I'm flexible enough. But then I failed miserably in my experiments especially when I chose to become a purely selfish character that always cheated people, also I failed to play as a always-nice-female leader, and also when I tried being an aggressive-trigger-happy Mercenary. Different choices of behavior made me realize that ethics really gets tested only when you are put into testing situations and not in research questionnaires.
Lesson: Value system, morality and ethics are so deeply internalized that one does not realize how deep is their extent until one is forced to make a choice against it. Usually critical decisions made against one's value systems leads to situations where one shall be even more miserable.
a) Every Professional shall be tested by time, on his value system. If a Professional is ignorant of his value system than he probably is going to make decisions he will regret later on.
b) If one makes decisions as what one is not, then coming situations will reach a point either where one breaks or where one ends up in even more destitute situations.
2) If you are in management position, you have to live with it whether you like it or not: I hated to be in situations where life of my team member was dependent on me, where I did not had that last spec of resource which could have tilted the situation in my favor, where I had to make hard choices or to be put in properly "Where I lost Control of Situation".
Lesson: Whether like it or not, acceptance that you are management and to make decisions within your scope of control appears to be the only solution. Of course one can always give up and turn tail.
a) There shall be situations that Professional shall be forced to make decisions which he'll not like. Being a leader puts Professional in even deeper shithole where his decisions will affect his whole team, family, bank balance and what not.
b) Whether like it or not, one has to act like a Leader and keep working in situations with numerous constraints on time, with limited resources, with underdeveloped team members. Just be ready for the inevitable.
3) Team is defined by complimentary skills & group synergy and it develops over time: Although I loved management team mates who talked & shot the way I wanted them to, fortunately I was smart enough to realize that I need that ill mannered foul mouth girl, who is better than me in dispatching my overwhelming 'Husk' problems (it's a ME2 group of zombies). I also pat myself to develop all my team mates irrespective of the fact some of them got on my nerves. Equally developed members are what constitute a good team which actually increased my chances of survival.
Lesson: Team consists of individuals. Strength of management Team comes from individuals who are diverse in thinking and skills. Early one recognizes that, better it is.
a) It helps to focus on management team development in totality rather than prejudiced approach to development.
b) Loyalty to team and to leader comes from individuals who are part of teams rather than an individual called management 'team'. One cannot afford to forget that it is individuals who make a management team.
c) It takes time to build up a good team, earn their trust but moments to destroy them both, so remain aware of the consequences while using words and actions.
4) Networking helps, usually in small jobs leading to bigger goals: Why to give a damn about need of some smaller alien when Hero is saving galaxy, or to do small errands? It turned out that the minor advantages when calculated in totality at the end, turned out to be the changing agents of the season in my favor.
Lesson: Networking is more than having a big visiting card directory.
a) It is not about your own gratification but it is more about to help people and remaining in touch. You will sleep better with even small voluntary help you provided, than a large cache of cash. And you never know which small act of yours may turn that Jackpot in your favor.
b) Networking is not about Big, Audacious, Hairy Goals, but it is a vehicle which gives us opportunity about taking those small steps which actually strengthen your value system and thereby your decisions making/Stress handling management skills.
5) Decisions & Mistakes, will always live with us: I wish I was gentler to the alien who would have given me 2 paragon points which at the end would have saved my 3 hours searching of miscellaneous jobs for the same. I wish I would have invested my resource on Upgraded Rifle, instead of plastic surgery, thus saving me time when I had to reload my game again and again, and again. I did not get second chance. I could not say that it was a small matter. I could not oppose game's decision of withholding of small benefits, as a retaliation of my small mistakes.
Temperament is also a decision, wherein you choose to act as per your decision of behaving in a particular way. Quick in assuming things and making inflexible judgments are part of bad Temperament. Bad temperament closes doors which unfortunately we will never know, existed. This game not only tested my temperament but surprisingly also helped me in reconsidering my temperament and gave me ample opportunities of changing and improvising it.
Lesson: Decisions we make including mistakes shall live with us, irrespective of treatment we give them. How much we may try to forget, we are what our decisions made us, so next time we have to decide, it is better to remember our past.
a) Taking decisions without any thought is like shooting from hip. It never hits the target, it can make you do extra work or worse it may take most unpleasant turn at worst possible time. (Pareto's Principle)
b) But then once you have done it, now dwelling on it doesn't help either. Dwelling on past mistakes or even successes changes nothing. Dwelling ends up wasting time and energy only. So just move on and live with it.
c) Notwithstanding above, always remember those who forget their history are condemned to repeat it.
d) It is worth repeating that Temperament is also a choice.
6) Invest in Development rather than Hoarding: Fortunately my earlier experience with Strategy Games developed my 'resource utilization strategy thinking' a bit better than average. Part of such thinking is, if you are consistently maintaining High Bank Balance during the game, then 99.99% chances are that you going to lose the war. Why? Because you are not utilizing your funds to develop your advantages, skills and knowledge base for the future.
a) Money is only a transaction value. Money as a transaction value only facilitates, but does not develop any development on/through itself. High amounts of credits can help only in high end purchases, usually gets wasted for useless items like going for plastic surgery of my character's scars.
b) Knowledge and management Skills have value because you can build on them. Ever increasing management skills and knowledge gives you advantage in situations and increases yours odds of coming out as a winner. Like they say 'harder you work, luckier you get'. Your rifle handling management skills help you develop Sniper handling management skills, your negotiation skills helps you work out of precarious situations, your technical knowledge gives you edge over your otherwise worthy opponents who slipup only once but then giving you a good opportunity not to be missed.
7) Never take your eyes off your final Goal: Those side-quests in exotic locations are great time sinks. And those weapon upgrade systems keep one busy for hours. Not to mention about soul satisfying experience of testing Nuclear Weapons on the bugs. And then suddenly I with my team was sent to the final scene, where each round ate someone on my team, thereby leaving a bitter taste of all those useless weapon upgrades and exotic journeys. I made a mistake of thinking that everything can wait. When 'time' came at its own time then I was unprepared to take it head on, since I forgot what my duty was.
Lessons: a) If there is no final goal then the journey is useless. Side quests soon become uninspiring and unending. Those pains taken for developments, time invested for learning, money spent on upgrades and may be game itself (just like life) will soon be pointless and uninspiring (something called as mid-life crisis) without that one final goal which is why game is worth playing for (for that BHAG, life is worth living for).
b) Even if you lose your focus 'Time' is still ticking away and unfortunately those "important goals" will present themselves at most inappropriate times, in most inappropriate forms ending in most inappropriate ways. Always remember what your duty is.
Now it is time for me to go back and work on my temperament again. I have to work on my paragon skills since I'm consistently not able to resolve one ongoing quarrel in my team and thereby ending up with a not so loyal teammate.
Gourav Kapil
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