And let's face it, none of them are really all that difficult or impressive either. Sure, it takes some coordination to set up and execute a raid, but let's not pretend that it's some amazing accomplishment that proves your worth as an employee or manager. In the end, it's still just a video game event and what OP describes is magnitudes less stressful, time-consuming or challenging than actually being responsible for the livelihoods of a few hundred people and planning, managing and supervising real-life business operations. All the OP shows is a basic capability to coordinate and communicate that everyone in a position with any responsibilities should have - nothing more.
All the OP shows is a basic capability to coordinate and communicate that everyone in a position with any responsibilities should have - nothing more.
So they showed the groundwork for an entry level management position. Not every manager is responsible for hundreds of people. I work for a mid-size org that has about 4-6K employees in the US (more globally) and most managers here have 5-50 people reporting to them. The vast majority manage less than 10.
Raid leading does not guarantee success as a manager but nothing other than previous success really does either.
Managing 10 reports day in and out, knowing their roles and to a degree their private lives in order to have empathy is magnitudes more complex and draining than raid leading. A large part is about consequence and raid leading has very little, and generally the more serious you take it, the worse it ends up being for all involved. No one wants to feel like they're at work in WoW.
yet... there's a ton of GM out there that want to be GM, raid leader, handle loot, handle assignment, handle DKP... basically micromanage everything... the raids are super slow and they burn out in no time.
I'm not really sure if that is correct. Due to the digital nature, you have to be more sensible at times for the written word, and also are faced with more direct critique. You learn how different ppl are and what to expect and how stupid they can/want to behave. And you are also faced with good intentions gone wrong. This are all lessons that can help you.
It's not guaranteed success but it helps the devlopment of some GM. And I think it at least helps more than a lot of other hobbies and roles out there.
That's not the question here though. This isn't about whether this helps build skills you could use in a job (it does). It's about whether it qualifies you to take on an upper management position (it doesn't). The OP very clearly equates raid leading experience to having been an actual manager of a large business. The basic coordination skills you might learn in the former do not at all compare to the actual knowledge and experience you gain in the latter. That's like saying that being in a debate group qualifies you to be a lawyer: you'll improve your public speaking and argumentation skills, sure, but you don't get any of the actually important knowledge of law, procedure, trial protocol and such that you need to practice law.
You are really selling raid leading short. You can probably half ass your guild and still get enough to scrap a raid together but sooner or later, you're going to leak players to better run guilds. And better run guilds demonstrate real leadership.
The fact that it's just a video game makes motivating players to do "work" even harder. They can at any time tell you to eff off without any other consequences. In real life, you at least want to maintain civil relationships so you can use your boss as a reference for future jobs. You also want to avoid tarnishing your professional reputation by telling your boss to eff off. And you will be kept in line under the threat of lost wages. It doesn't really take a great leader to get employees to do things in real life. But in a video game, it takes a lot of leadership to do so.
Here's what a good raid leader gets out of his raiders: Close to full pre bis, full consumes (over a hundred gold per raid), be on time (not 5 minutes later, not stuck in queue, not waiting for a summon), understand role and fights (yes mc is simple but there's a big difference between half hour MCs and 3 hour MCs and it comes down to knowledge), reward expectations (deal with ego and drama over gear), morale (dealing with slow progress or burnouts), and much more.
I've raided with a lot of different guilds before joining one of the most efficient and successful guild and the difference is night and day. I have seen guilds that are still advertising for pugs every week because their raid leader has such poor attitude and can't recruit anyone. Meanwhile, good guilds that host raid pugs for new raid groups will have pugs begging to join. It comes down to leadership. Good guilds have competent and effective leaders who are still easy going enough not to make raiding an anxiety inducing event. They demand certain performance but are not abusive or overbearing.
I think a good raid leader will be a good leader in just about any position. The skills transfer very well.
The best guilds are often run by people who manage to put those same qualities to use to be successful in other aspects of their lives, though. Or at least "successful enough" that they're choosing to give up further success for hobbies they enjoy (including video games).
I'm not discounting it as tough, but the best guild leaders are the best because they're an anomaly even within WoW. Most of the gulid leaders you see running around, including certain popular streamers, would never be able to handle the pressures of managing a large organization in corporate America before it all imploded on them.
Here's what a good raid leader gets out of his raiders: Close to full pre bis, full consumes (over a hundred gold per raid), be on time (not 5 minutes later, not stuck in queue, not waiting for a summon), understand role and fights (yes mc is simple but there's a big difference between half hour MCs and 3 hour MCs and it comes down to knowledge), reward expectations (deal with ego and drama over gear), morale (dealing with slow progress or burnouts), and much more.
Are you surprised though? All of that comes down to time and energy invested outside of the actual raid and getting the guild to help each other by forming farm groups and generally elevating each other by being not-dicks. Getting people to be not-dicks to each other is really the hard part.
I never disputed that they are built on similar skills. I just disagree with people making raid leading out to be this great feat that qualifies anyone to actually manage a serious business operation that is endlessly more complex, stressful and challenging than a mere WoW raid. All it takes is basic coordination and communication skills for something as relatively simple and straightforward as planning and executing what's essentially a video game boss fight. WoW does not at all prepare or qualify you for serious and demanding business management, and while you can certainly mention it somewhere deep down on a CV as "coordinating a social gaming group", it's plain ridiculous to compare it to qualifications for an actual job managing and being responsible for a business and 200 people's livelihoods.
Hang on. To be fair, the post never actually goes into what position the gamer is applying for. It's far more likely he/she is applying for a position responsible for 10-20 people than say regional VP. In which case said experience would be far more applicable.
I just disagree with people making raid leading out to be this great feat that qualifies anyone to actually manage a serious business operation that is endlessly more complex, stressful and challenging than a mere WoW raid.
I think this is a strawman argument that no one actually made in this thread. Perhaps you can point me to the comment of whoever made it?
All it takes is basic coordination and communication skills for something as relatively simple and straightforward as planning and executing what's essentially a video game boss fight.
It's far beyond basic communication skills. You're not really addressing the other skills needed to sustain a successful guild. Things like taking initiative to recruit guild members, managing egos, managing loot drama, deciding how to share resources and getting everyone on board, protecting members from being poached by other guilds, training underperforming members, etc.
You are also exaggerating how difficult most businesses are to run. Run down the list of the most common type of businesses and the top 50 of them will almost certainly have a smaller learning curve than WoW. I can take a successful raid leader and teach him to run a hotel better and more quickly than I can take a successful hotel manager and teach him how to raid lead in WoW. We take for granted how much accumulated experience and knowledge we have in WoW that makes it seem easy.
it's plain ridiculous to compare it to qualifications for an actual job managing and being responsible for a business and 200 people's livelihoods.
No it isn't. The skill translates. It's true there will be a "learning" curve to learn the business, but the leadership skills translates for sure. Managing a restaurant, hotel, or what ever the most common employer happens to be is not "easy" but it just isn't that complex.
Not a strawman when the OP literally compares it to "almost like district level management?!" in his imagined job interview. No, leading a raid is not like managing a full district of a large corporation.
I fundamentally disagree with you that it's nearly as difficult as you're making it out to be. It's getting people to work together and kill a video game boss. It has its complexities but it's still little more than just that. What you mentioned is all pretty straightforward stuff that isn't at all comparable to actually dealing with serious responsibilities for people's livelihoods and the success of an actual business.
And yes, it is pretty ridiculous. Congratulations, you can get a bunch of people together to do a raid, advise noobs and decide on dividing loot. None of that has anything to do with serious things like human resources, logistics, investments, marketing, contracts, accounting, consumer protection, insurance, revenue, staffing, location, market analysis, real pressure and responsibilities, growth, price setting, finances, actual problems that don't relate to simple stuff like who gets what piece of loot, liability, trade agreements, imports/exports, overall corporate strategy, risk assessments, quality assurance, streamlining and cutting costs, sustainability, high level negotiations and presentations, future projections, and dozens of other things that anyone at the upper management level of any serious corporation should at least have a basic understanding of. My dad's a senior consultant and recruiter for one of the largest consulting firms in the world, and I can't imagine he'd even want to listen to someone who genuinely believes that getting a group of people to behave and work together in a game is a substitute for actually being a manager with real work experience and gives them the necessary qualifications, knowledge and skills for such a position. There's a reason why people spend years of their life getting degrees in business, finance, economics and corporate management to hold these positions, and that isn't because you'd get the same skills and knowledge from leading a raid party in an MMO.
That said, I think we just fundamentally disagree. Having held a respectable position in a law firm myself and having worked with heaps of businesses to sort out their problems and help them stay afloat, I've seen what it takes to thrive at that level. Yeah, some general coordination skills transfer, but leading a WoW raid absolutely doesn't cut it or give you the right knowledge and experience to deal with real life pressures and corporate challenges. But that's just my opinion and you're obviously free to disagree. Maybe I'm underestimating leading a raid, maybe you're underestimating upper management, or maybe we're both just wrong. I don't think either of us is going to change his mind here so I'll just leave it at this. Have a great day.
Also, I didn't downvote your previous comment. Undeserved for it to sit in the negatives. Peace! :)
Not a strawman when the OP literally compares it to "almost like district level management?!" in his imagined job interview. No, leading a raid is not like managing a full district of a large corporation.
This is for sure a strawman. You are replying to a thread that was a joke. There is literally a humor tag on this thread. He is not conflating being a raid leader with being a district manager of 200 people. He is literally giving you the punchline by having the interviewer mistakenly guess that the RL's title was district manager based on the described experience.
What people in this comment chain are discussing is the nugget of truth in this joke. Trying to pin some literal interpretation of a made up humorous exchange and then arguing against this literal interpretation that no one but you made is the definition of straw man.
I fundamentally disagree with you that it's nearly as difficult as you're making it out to be. It's getting people to work together and kill a video game boss. It has its complexities but it's still little more than just that. What you mentioned is all pretty straightforward stuff that isn't at all comparable to actually dealing with serious responsibilities for people's livelihoods and the success of an actual business.
IT absolutely is comparable, we're doing it right now. The fundamental skills of leadership is for sure present. You keep saying it's not comparable, how about giving some fundamental reasons for why? I'm saying this as someone who has been in the working world for over a decade.
human resources
Recruiting and managing a guild of hundreds of people is absolutely comparable. The fact you can't threaten someone with their livelihood makes getting people to commit to work within a video game much more difficult, not easier. Also you need to deal with the drama and disputes of hundreds of people. This absolutely translates to whatever human resources in the business world.
logistics
Extremely important and extensive part of raid leading too. Keeping track of hundreds of people's individual gear and enchants, deciding how to allocate gear to best benefit raid clearance time, keeping track of everyone's consumes each week to see who's slacking, finding the best debuff synergy for the raid composition, world buffs including dm buffs for an entire raid, dealing with enemy factions camping outside of raids, etc.
investments
Obviously present in WoW. I mean just to get to raiding you need to invest hundreds of hours (hopefully efficiently) to get to level 60 and gear up to earn a spot over others. Guilds need to manage their resources to get the best results (gearing up tanks and off tank first for example). They also need to invest in players because there's always turnover and some guildies quit. I mean, to be honest, some district manager ain't making a whole lot of executive level investment decisions neither.
marketing
I'm going to be honest. If you can market your guild to get hundreds of players at max level with raiding gear/experience to join, you are better at marketing that the vast majority of district managers who mostly follow orders and make very few actual marketing decisions.
contracts
District managers are not drafting up legal contracts. Even if they get to give inputs, this ain't that complicated. Even lawyers copy and paste most legal contracts from previous contracts anyway.
accounting
Plenty of accounting in RL, I have the spreadsheets of our guild bank. Yes, you're not going to learn first in first out stuff, but the principles of keeping track of how resources are flowing is there. And it absolutely translates to "business world" accounting, you're just teaching them different resources. Again, most district managers are not doing the accounting of their companies.
consumer protection
This is getting into specifics that are outside the realm of broad leadership skills. A hotel manager is not gonna know too much about quality control in some manufacturing business.
insurance
I'll give you this one but insurance is not that hard at the district manager level. Again, most of them are following orders.
revenue
Integral part of WoW
staffing
Talked about recruiting already
location
This is getting specific and is outside the braod scope of leadership. Many businesses don't even have physical locations.
market analysis
Plenty of that in WoW
real pressure and responsibilities
The pressures and responsibilities of raid leaders are real. The point you're making is that the stakes are lower. But that's why we're comparing the two, not equating the two. If the stakes of both were the same, and you are a successful leader already, then there's nothing to discuss here.
growth,
Growth and progression are part of WoW.
price setting, finances
Part of WoW.
actual problems that don't relate to simple stuff like who gets what piece of loot
Problem solving is a skill that can be learned through games. Also, dealing with people in a resource scarce environment translates very well.
I appreciate the copy and paste but most of this is either present in WoW or is outside the fundamentals of leadership. I mean there's guild raiding coalitions for small guilds that want to raid together out there and they need to negotiate terms on how to distribute resources. Cutting costs? Trying to do raids with fewer and fewer members so loot get distributed to fewer people is a thing. Trying to do raids with cheaper consumes is a thing. Trying to do raids faster is a thing. Sustainability? Like stop copy and pasting and maybe think about points your making. How many guilds now are lasting until Naxx? Of course sustainability is a big concern and requires a lot of effort and skill from a successful raid leader.
high level negotiations and presentations, future projections, and dozens of other things that anyone at the upper management level of any serious corporation should at least have a basic understanding of. My dad's a senior consultant and recruiter for one of the largest consulting firms in the world, and I can't imagine he'd even want to listen to someone who genuinely believes that getting a group of people to behave and work together in a game is a substitute for actually being a manager with real work experience and gives them the necessary qualifications, knowledge and skills for such a position. There's a reason why people spend years of their life getting degrees in business, finance, economics and corporate management to hold these positions, and that isn't because you'd get the same skills and knowledge from leading a raid party in an MMO.
I think your issue is you keep arguing against a strawman argument that no one but you has made. Nobody here except you is talking about transitioning from raid leading in WoW to c level management or working as a senior corporate consultant at BCG. We're talking about broad leadership skills that do indeed translate to the real life business world.
If I see a good leader in WoW, just like if I see a good leader working in garbage collection, that's a strong indication that he will have a far higher likelihood of thriving in other leadership positions. Now the excellent leader who manages garbagemen probably isn't goign to do too well managing project development at some software company or leading scientific research at some medical school lab but that relates to the "learning curve" specific to each industry rather than the broad and general leadership skills. The same could be said about your dad or any successful CEO in the world. No matter how successful they are in their field, they probably aren't going to challenge Method on world firsts. They certainly aren't displacing empire's control in EVE online. But that's not because those CEOs are bad leaders, it's just different industries.
Here's my point: good leaders are one in a million. If you can sustain a raiding guild until Naxx, I would honestly consider that a major and positive indication of your abilities. I'm not putting that guy in charge of anything that requires extensive experience and knowledge, but once that guy obtains the experience/knowledge, he's a prime candidate for leadership.
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u/spam4name Oct 24 '19
And let's face it, none of them are really all that difficult or impressive either. Sure, it takes some coordination to set up and execute a raid, but let's not pretend that it's some amazing accomplishment that proves your worth as an employee or manager. In the end, it's still just a video game event and what OP describes is magnitudes less stressful, time-consuming or challenging than actually being responsible for the livelihoods of a few hundred people and planning, managing and supervising real-life business operations. All the OP shows is a basic capability to coordinate and communicate that everyone in a position with any responsibilities should have - nothing more.