Click the play button on the video window to the see the storyA Valley team building company is utilizing the computer-based strategy game “Empire Earth II” to teach managers how to be better bosses.
Executive Command CEO Kevin Azar said creating and completing missions on the interactive video game helps people think strategically.
"What happens is you have to think long term, long range, and by doing that we are training these managers, directors, executives to think long range, the way you have to do in business," said Azar.
Azar explained how there are four roles during game play. The people behind the computer terminals are the unit leaders or "generals."
Tammy Valdez is the Vice President of the indentify theft prevention company
LifeLock.
She explained how the "generals" represent "the front line employee and since these guys manage those employees they see how stressful it is when they’re telling them 'hurry up and do this.'"
Then there are the Operations and Intelligence Officers that are the liaison between the "generals" and the “commander."
In a middle manager-type role, those officers have to pass information both up the chain of command and back down.
Valdez said, "In order to win the battle they have to think strategically they have to put together a plan."
Azar said probably the most important role is the commander.
That’s because the person in that position isn’t at a computer terminal actually playing the game.
Instead he is overseeing a large map drawn out on a dry erase marker board.
The commander’s job is to make critical decisions based on the feedback he is getting from his intelligence and operations officers.
He is playing the game remotely, making decisions with out even being at the controls of the actual game.
Azar said this is where leadership is born.
"We don’t want the commanders to be myriad in the tactics. To be a true commander, to be a true executive, you cannot be concerned or myriad in the tactics you have to think strategically," said Azar.
Meantime you can see and sense the level of stress rise in the room as the team begins to lose the battle.
"The whole idea of the game is it simulates stress," said Valdez. "It puts them under a lot of pressure and so what you see is what your manager is going to look like under pressure in the workplace. You get everything from complete frustration and shut down where they won’t talk to anybody because they are just mad to yelling and screaming."
She said learning how you respond to stress helps her managers make corrections.
"Because they are a leader it’s important to know what their response is going to be under pressure so that they can anticipate that and deal with that ahead of time."
Valdez says LifeLock can quantify the benefits the Executive Command program is having on its employees.
She explained how a recent employee survey found that 96 percent of employees said they knew how their job and/or their role in the company helps meet LifeLock’s mission and helps the company succeed.
She also has noticed that her managers are able to think more "big picture" after returning to work.
"I see that because they will come back to the office and say, 'We need to fix this. If we do its going to save us x amount of dollars. It will really help us as a company.'"
Her final thought, “Eighty percent of our employees stay and that has saved the company more than two million dollars… not having to hire and retrain, hire and retrain.”
