subject: How World Of Warcraft Trains Business Executives [print this page] Many companies find the training of employees to be expensive and time-consuming. With very few exceptions workers in companies do not enjoy training. When you perform tasks in certain ways for weeks, months or years training to do them differently is often met with resistance.
When an employer wants to develop their employees and even groom them for management positions training is required. Regardless of company specific training all staff must be trained in the basic team building skills and this is especially true in the business world.
The training that is necessary is often perceived as boring and uninspiring by employees and are therefore not openly embraced.
Not all employees want to be trained. Although there may be a small number that wish to progress and openly embrace training as a vehicle for advancement most workers do not enjoy the process. The fact that not all employees wish to be trained means training becomes very troublesome.
Many corporate entities are now using a video game to help them deal with these training issues. World of Warcraft is now being used as a vehicle for training many business executives and managers! World of Warcraft is no ordinary video game. It is the largest and most comprehensive MMORG (Massively Multi-Player Online Role Playing Game) in the world.
Many top executives in the business world have openly praised WoW has the ability and innovative way of training mangers (albeit as a side-effect and not deliberately). However few business executives will have participated in it, despite the fact that over 11 million players are active subscribers to the game - a fact that brings with it a monthly subscription fee. This simple fact highlights a rather surprising statistic - players of this game are not kids and teenagers but fall into a range of different age demographics.
Far from being the domain of kids World of Warcraft attracts young adults between the age of 23 and 39 who actively play for approximately twenty-three hours a week.
Although these facts may be interesting and enlightening your are probably wondering what on earth it all has to do with staff training in the business world.
Simple!
While playing world of warcraft you accumulate experience points. These points are gathered by completing certain tasks in the game, called quests, and by killing enemies and training your character. The game becomes much more challenging as your progress. It is the aim to get your character from the starting level of 1 to a level of 80 and also gain proficiency in several professions.
As you progress through the higher levels you must become much more mentally engaged in the game and the tasks that you must perform. Completing more complicated tasks is rewarded with better character developments and upgrades.
There are also other ways to progress within the game. Social interaction is an intricate part of the game with entry into, or acceptance by, groups and guilds, that are filled with real people, being needed in order to fully appreciate the warcraft gaming experience.
In order to full enjoy the entire gaming experience team work is necessary and leadership skills are essential.
Forget those lame paint-ball type corporate team building events. Get everyone online and in world of warcraft. Consider instead getting your staff interested in world of warcraft and playing as a team. For only ten dollars a month each team member can be trained in team building, organisational and managerial skills.
