(Newswire.net — July 27, 2019) — Organizations and HR teams are always searching for ways to improve their professional development process. The latest and greatest techniques are sometimes not realistic or as cost-effective, i.e. courses that cost thousands of dollars for one team member. Fortunately, an age-old technique of playing strategy games is now getting recognized as a way to develop critical business skills. There’s relatively an endless option of new-and-improved strategy games. Whether you want to build and run a virtual city or control an interstellar empire – it’s now available seemingly at your fingertips. Organizations should start recognizing the impact strategy games can have on the collective success of their teams. Here’s why strategy games are great for professional development:
Enhance Alertness and Perception
Many strategy games are fast-paced, with different moving parts to consider. It’s important to stay alert and focused so players can interpret situations that present themselves during the game. Just as any challenge you would typically face in real-life, the way you react during the game will depend on your perception. Experimenting with various outcomes in a strategy game can help prepare you for similar scenarios in the workplace. Enhancing your alertness and perception skills are important to being a good communicator, team member and problem-solver.
Hone In on Concentration Skills
The digitally-focused world we live in is full of distractions. With endless options for communication and notifications going off left and right, it can be really hard to tackle your to-do list in a full day’s work. Practicing your concentration skills and getting used to seeing one task through to completion can really help you. “The ability to command the mind and control the attention is not common, and requires training. Most people lack the ability to control their attention and focus the mind exclusively on one subject for any length of time,” explains SuccessConsciousness. Strategy games require your full attention or else you’ll get beat by either a computer or your opponent. If you’re distracted, you won’t accomplish your objective. Concentration is key in both games and real-life challenges.
Learn Negotiation Tactics
Strategy games are a great tool for learning negotiation tactics. For example, the game of poker. During a game, it’s important to analyze the table and be extremely conscious of your opponent’s every move. Mats Johnson, Executive Director for Global Poker explains, “Poker is a strategy game. The idea behind poker is to play each hand as perfectly as possible – and sometimes that means driving your opponent to playing their hand as imperfectly as possible.” The same can be applied to negotiating a business deal. You have to be patient and sometimes that requires you to wait for all offers to be put on the table before you react. Once you get the full picture, you can adjust your counter-offer accordingly. It’s also important in a poker game (and in negotiation) to remain calm, cool and collected. Strategy games can help guide and refine your negotiation tactics – accomplishing the outcome you desire and ultimately making you more successful.
Professional development doesn’t have to be extremely complicated or expensive. Organizations should start tapping out-of-the-box resources such as strategy games to develop and sharpen pertinent business skills.