Napalm Riot

The best sign that someone’s qualified to run an Internet startup may not be an MBA degree, but level 70 guild leader status, according to the latest issue of Harvard Business Review.

“Leadership’s Online Labs” by Byron Reeves, Thomas W. Malone, and Tony O’Driscoll is based on the authors’ research into the leadership and management skills required by fantasy/sci-fi MMORPGs like World of Warcraft and Eve Online. In those multiplayer games, the hardest-to-achieve goals (such as killing the demi-god dragon, wiping out a competing space corporation, and so on) often require dozens or even hundreds of players working together in concert, so the skills required to lead a successful mission, the authors argue, are very much like those needed to run a profitable business.

The theory is hardly new; venture capitalist and hardcore WoW player Joi Ito has been talking about this for years. But the HBR team bolsters it with extensive interviews and observations to turn out an article that could help revolutionize business management in the digital age.

So what are some of the main managerial lessons they learned from the worlds of orcs, elves and battle cruisers? Below are the three that stand out most to me — call them the habits of highly effective half-elf managers:

(Continuation Source: http://gigaom.com/2008/05/07/world-of-ceo-craft/)