For those of you who don’t know what World of Warcraft (WoW) is; it is a Massively Online Multiplayer (MMO) video game with over 12 million players.
WoW has been around for just over 5 years now, and I’ve been playing it for just as long. From Beta testing “Vanilla” to beating the last boss of Wrath and there are some pretty significant things I’ve learned from this game that translate perfectly to business:
Building Relationships – In WoW you interact with hundreds if not thousands of other real people inside the video game world every time you play. From simply passing them by to forming a team with them in order to accomplish a common goal; people are everywhere in WoW and you need to be able to work with them and build a lasting relationship in order to be successful. Much like Business sometimes you need some help with a task you simply can’t do; personally I’m a horrid artist, I can’t even draw a stick figure, so you find someone who can help you out. In WoW that may mean finding a priest to treat your wounds, in business; sometimes you need the same thing… J
For the record some of the relationships I’ve built in WoW are ongoing today, I’ve had friends fly up to see me in Ottawa and have flown down to them. About 10 of us have been playing together for over 3 years now, with no signs of stopping.
Managing a team of 25-40 People in Real-time – WoW has an interesting system for defeating an enemy. Certain ones you can wack with a sword a couple times till they fall over, others require you bring 25-40 friends with you in order to defeat them. In such cases these events are called “raids”, where you bring the firepower. When you lead a raid it takes collaboration, extreme teamwork, and quick thinking. You are managing 25 – 40 individuals, real people, all focused on real time actions that will keep everyone alive and accomplish the set goal. It can get hectic at times, insane at others, but in the end good communication and team work always wins.
Imagine your team got a task from the CEO to prepare a report on a new product. You pull in 9 other colleagues and have 4 hours to collaborate and create the report and each of you brings something of utter importance to the table. Manage each other and accomplish the goal, now add 30 more people and do it over VOIP (Voice over IP).
Never Giving Up – We fall so we can learn to pick ourselves back up – Famous quote, genius words. Nothing is truer in Business and WoW. I remember failing to kill a certain raid boss over 628 times. That’s about 8 months of working on it. Until finally, we smote that jerk, and let me tell you it felt damn good.
Being able to continue on in the face of adversity is imperative to business, especially start ups and entrepreneurs. Learning this skill will be invaluable as I move forward with my business career.
Working as a Team Player – Sometimes you have to sacrifice yourself in order for the team to succeed. In some cases working a couple late nights, maybe flying out to a customer site; all these things help the team and business succeed. I learned to be a team player and make sacrifices on the sports teams I was in, but WoW taught me best. Sacrificing my life (the video game character’s anyway) to save my team in the game has happened many times. Sacrificing a few hours of sleep so we can succeed and ultimately thinking selflessly of the team’s success over my own has helped shaped me into what I hope to be a successful business man.
There you have it; 4 ways WoW made me a better business man. Thoughts? I’d love to hear them in the comments!
Posted on July 31, 2010
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