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Decision making
Video games: More than child's play for leaders
VIRGINIA GALT
From Friday's Globe and Mail

Nuclear power plant managers are hardly your stereotypical video gamers.

Yet, there were a couple of dozen of them recently, alternating between elation and meltdown over an educational video game that Ontario Power Generation Inc. asked them to play as part of a leadership-development exercise.

Their mission: to turn around a failing technology company. As the day-long gaming session progressed at OPG's plant in Pickering, Ont., the competing teams clustered closer around their computer screens, decibel levels rising as they shouted their delight, or dismay, over each advance or setback.

Grownups indulging in child's play? Only in part, says Judy Wood, an OPG manager specializing in organizational effectiveness who sent the workers to play.
There is a serious intent behind these play-and-learn sessions: to teach managers to become better decision-makers through computer simulations where, as in life, every choice has a consequence, Ms. Wood says.

The immediate reward for players: successfully advancing to the next level of the game.

The longer-term reward for those who master, and later apply, the strategies and lessons learned: the prospect of taking their careers to the next level.
Employees tend to absorb more by actually working through problems than by sitting through dry lectures on theories of managing change, Ms. Wood says.

The technology allows players to test their analytical, decision-making and management skills in “a safe environment” — safe in that there is no risk to the bottom lines of the organizations that employ them if they make a mistake, adds Dan Ondrack, a management professor and academic director of executive programs at the University of Toronto's Joseph L. Rotman School of Management.

OPG is among a growing number of companies that now supplement traditional management courses with video games to enhance the skills of their executives and fast-track the next generation of leaders.

The technology has also been incorporated into leadership-development programs at companies including Bombardier Inc., Royal Bank of Canada and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.

The United States Navy has used video-game simulations to increase the ability of its leaders to make the right decisions under time pressure, as has the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the United Nations and the Central Intelligence Agency.

Rotman and other business schools were among the earliest adopters, reinforcing classroom lessons with video games that simulate real-life business scenarios.
The use of video simulation as a management training tool is still so new there have not yet been any conclusive academic studies about its effectiveness.

But there is no question about its growing popularity. “Video games have captured the attention of training professionals, and are emerging as an increasingly popular training tool,” according to a discussion paper by researchers Janis Canon-Bowers of the University of Central Florida and Karin Ovis of George Mason University presented this year at the annual conference of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology.

Deborah Hurst, a professor in the centre for innovative management at Alberta's Athabasca University, has used the technology in her on-line MBA courses.
“The students really develop a new level of insight. They just come back [after playing the simulations] and are able to discuss things on another level and they love it. It just provides a little variety into the learning environment.”

The North American executive-training market is served by a handful of “boutique players.” There is not enough money in leadership development simulations to attract the big gaming companies, such as Nintendo Co. Ltd., says Lawrence Suda, chief executive officer of New York-based Palatine Group, which developed a project-management simulation for NASA.

However, the big video-game companies have certainly primed the niche market for simulations as an adult training tool, he says.

“We have this new generation of people coming into the business field who have played these games, and they don't want to just sit still and listen to all these people talking about leadership and management,” he says. “They want to actually have some hands-on experience. They want to be promoted faster, and they want to have challenging assignments faster.”

In the change-management game at OPG, teams chose from 50 tactics in their race to save the fictitious tech company from insolvency and return it to profitability. Their success hinged on identifying the problems, developing a strategy, making a compelling case for change and getting buy-in throughout the ranks.
Among the lessons learned: to create the sense of urgency needed to make the necessary changes, do not bring in the chief executive officer midway through to make an upbeat speech.

Click on that bring-in-the-CEO option and, immediately, shop supervisor “Ralphy Jones” pops up on the screen, saying: “I guess I can relax now, I was getting worried.”

The sense of complacency that sets in after the boss's don't-worry speech threatens the success of the turnaround attempt, says James Chisholm, co-founder of Toronto-based ExperiencePoint Inc., which designed the game.

Players also decide when and if to fire “resisters” to the proposed changes. (Hint: Pulling the trigger too early in the game can backfire and create anxiety throughout the organization.)

They decide whether to shock their virtual employees into compliance by presenting the worst-case scenario if they do not participate in the turnaround effort. (Worst-case scenarios have a surprisingly galvanizing effect).

And they call the shots on rewards for good performance. (Frequent offerings of such recognition are always a good strategy).

Back in the real world, simulations “have become an integral part” of the training and development strategy at computer services company Electronic Data Systems Corp of Dallas.

Combined with traditional class-room lectures, on-line courses and podcasts, the simulations give participants a feel for actual problems they will encounter. Before they log off, players are debriefed on what they could have done differently and where they were successful — “things to think about when you are in that circumstance in real life,” says Dave Arcemont, vice-president of global work force management for EDS.

Mr. Arcemont himself has tried his hand at an adapted version of the project-management game first devised by the Palatine Group for NASA.

The game plays out over four days, taking participants through all the complexities of managing a major project — in this case, landing a spaceship on Mars — from start to completion.

It is just one component of the “advanced project leadership curriculum” at EDS, which aims to take talented employees from the point where they can manage a single project to a level where they can manage “multiple global projects at one time,” Mr. Arcemont says.

“I believe, and what we have seen through our measurement and feedback sessions with participants, is that simulations really accelerate learning by modelling real-life experiences.”

The simulations draw on business-school theory for their content and video-game technology for their fun factor, he says.

Clearly, it takes much more than the mastery of a game to rise through the ranks and become a more influential player in the real world, Palatine Group's Mr. Suda says.
“That's what we tell them upfront. We can't guarantee success, but we can set you up for the probability of being successful. Even in a simulation, as in life, there are elements of luck,” he says.

“Some people get lucky, and some people can do all the right things and be unlucky.”
But, hey, that's reality.