There was a huge buzz a couple of years ago around “Brain Training” games on portable gaming devices. These largely took the form of fairly simply mathematical and reasoning challenges that gradually became more complex as the game progressed. The media jumped firmly on the bandwagon and the hype was incredible, but research demonstrated that they were of limited benefit in terms of increasing brain performance or intelligence and the hype gradually lessened as the zeitgeist moved on. However, one area in which they did seem to make a difference was in increasing speed and ability to complete specific related tasks. There is some good evidence that they increased activity in very specific parts of the brain to do with mental arithmetic and special awareness as well as hand to eye co-ordination. This led me to speculate that the possibility exists that a sufficiently well tailored training game focusing on the core skills required by business leaders could bring similar benefits.
Now, there are a couple of issues with such a game. Firstly there is the problem of defining what the core skills of a business leader are, and then of course finding simple, quick tasks that cam translate into engaging game play on portable device. The first of these has been the subject of heated debate for years, and a quick review of a tv show such as The Apprentice will give some insight into the difficulty of spotting what makes a good or successful business leader. In the main there are thought to be a combination of skills that are required, starting with drive and ambition in order to be able to drive others effectively, moving through vision and decision making ability to be able to spot an opportunity and then act upon it quickly and effectively enough through to entrepreneurial ability to take that drive and vision and make something successful happen. These are fairly well established core skills but even within these there are debates over what they actually mean and how they are effective. Drive for example is pointless without focus and direction, and what exactly is entrepreneurial ability anyway.
So perhaps it is not simply the acquisition of these skills as individual abilities but the way in which they are integrated together that is at the heart of a successful business leader. In which case a suitable game would have to not simply encourage these skills but integrate them in the correct proportions and at the correct stages in order to be effective. Too much drive to early could lead to mistakes and failures that could be discouraging. To much vision without drive could lead to frustration. So how would we go about tailoring a suitable game? It would need to begin with establishing a clear end point or goal. This is at the core of business planning and decision making. Perhaps it could start with multiple end points and the player has to select the one that he or she feels is most appropriate. There would be no way of the player establishing if their decision had been correct until later in the game and this would need to be made clear to the player. This would encourage reasoned decision making. It would have to be time critical, putting pressure on the player from the outset. Perhaps a screen with four scenarios and five minutes to make a choice. This choice would then lead into the game proper.
Perhaps the most accurate platform would be a variant of the classic Football Management game combined with the format of the Civilization style games of Sid Meier. Having established a start point the player would be presented with decisions to be made and consequences of those decisions. At each stage there would be an opportunity for the player to respond to in-game prompts for justifications of decision, perhaps in the manner of boardroom conflicts or staff activity. Throughout the game there would be monitoring of the speed and accuracy of input from the player and addition pressure being brought in through time limits for actions. This would encourage a refinement in the decision making process but would need to be teamed with something within the game play that made the whole experience more than simply a game.
The idea that leaps to mind is to use the previously mentioned format of The Apprentice. You would have a monthly league table of players globally divisions separating players by experience so that new entrants to the game were competing against other new entrants rather than hardened veterans. The pay-off would then be that the very best players were offered positions within the organizational structure of the gaming company, or the game platform company. In my vision this would give the company behind the game an excellent way of analyzing potential candidates through psychometric profiling as well as giving players a clearly defined goal to strive for. The infrastructure is already in place as are the gaming platforms and I think this could be a strong route forward for bringing the historically child and adolescent focused game environment firmly into the mainstream. It might also serve to encourage strategic thinking and research in players if structured in the right way.
The applications for this style of gaming could go beyond business into education although this is a more ethically challenging area……
No comments:
Post a Comment