Online gamers could well be tomorrow's business advisors. According to two research studies from IBM, done in conjunction with MIT, Stanford University and a software start-up called Seriosity, the leadership qualities required in the ever-globalised business world are the same that millions of kids, teenagers and adults are developing in the world of multi-player, online-role playing games such as World of Warcraft and Everquest.
The research team captured hours of online games, surveyed hundreds of gamers and conducted several interviews of gaming leaders.
The objective of the study was two-fold, to better understand how successful leaders behave in online games and to learn the aspects of game that environment leaders leverage to be more effective.
"If you want to see what business leadership will look like in 3-5 years, look at what's happening in online games," said Byron Reeves, the Paul C Edwards Professor of Communication at Stanford University.
That's because multiplayer online games enable thousands of players to interact, compete and collaborate with one another in real time.
Online games gave leaders the freedom to fail, and experiment with different approaches and techniques, something that any Fortune 500 company that hoped to innovate needed to understand, the research team observed. Also, leadership in online games was more temporary and flexible than in the business world.
"True innovation requires flexible, tolerant and interactive approaches to solving big problems," said Daniel Dias, director, IBM India Research Laboratory. Nearly half of the gamers studied believed that game-playing has improved their real-world leadership capabilities.
Three-quarters believed that the tools used in games to collaborate and connect could be applied to enhance leadership effectiveness for a globally integrated enterprise.
Players must make rapid-fire decisions based on multiple and constantly shifting inputs. Certain individuals invariably emerged to set a direction and shape the success of others. What's more, leadership was often temporal, quickly shifting from one person to another in the course of action.
The studies are significant as the days of closely-knit teams working on long-term strategies in close quarters are gone, replaced by virtual teams that constantly reinvent business in multiple time-zones the world over.
Besides, the business world is in desperate need of a new leadership model befitting the internet age. The IBM Global Innovation Outlook Gaming Study is an outcome of the company's annual GIO programme.
The GIO brings together hundreds of leaders from the business world, academia, politics and non-profit organisations for a series of "deep dive" brainstorming sessions around the world to identify meaningful innovation opportunities.