Revenge of the Gamers!

Tell me about the honesty that the use of avatars engenders. In games, they are signals of your role and expertise. In respect to representing expertise, the games keep you honest in ways real life doesn't. You can't say you are a Level 50 when you're only 40, whereas you can probably do that at work, where expertise is more objective. That's one reason people like these games: because they're fair. It's not about who you know and how well you do in the hallway conversation; it's what level you've achieved.

Finally, you note that leadership roles are often temporary in games. To some extent, people with competence rise to the top, but there is a lot of temporary leadership: I've been in this dungeon, so I'll just take over. A corollary is that leaders get experience being followers and that's useful also, because people who know a lot are being directed by people who know less, but for whatever reason, it's their turn to take over.

Getting back to the conclusion that the right environment may matter more than the right leader -- how can companies benefit from that insight Build better environments, and leadership will emerge. There's a real interest in analytics in business now. You can have a lot of data about how things are going. Dashboard and analytics is a good example. They provide a leader board and a score card like games have, and they're right up there for everybody to see. It's very gamelike.

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