Management Lessons from Playing Pokémon Go

We have all heard of Pokémon Go, the most viral app ever released that is now of interest to both game lovers and business leaders.

While people are having a blast with the new game, many business leaders have seen more practical use for the game and deriving management lessons from playing the game.

Talent Management

In this game, players must explore and relate to their surroundings in other to enjoy their game experience. There are different species of Pokémon, e.g. there is one that encourages the others to sleep. But as a player, one has to go to the different species of Pokémon with the hope of making them team members.

This is true for Recruitment and Human Resource Managers as they have to understand each candidate, how suitable they are for certain roles and how to reach them so as to help them to be efficient on the job.

Also, it is important to train your Pokémon for you to be successful at the game (it takes diligence to train the Pokémon) the same way it’s important to train your employee and create a programme that supports individual employees’ learning goals with the business objective in mind.

Diversity Management

In Pokémon Go, all the different species have to come together to get the desired result. Therefore, diversity should be prioritised when putting together a team. In creating a team, different set of people, from gender, ethnicity, work experience, a leader, a ‘sleeper’ etc. must be put together to help improve business performance and output as they will learn to manage one another.

Innovation

Who would have thought the Pokémon Go would gain the world’s attention? The Pokémon App demonstrates that anything can happen. As management and business minded people, let’s think about how to make things happen. Explore and invent ways to drive in new clients.

Finally, the Pokémon Go is a fabulous game with a great unexpected success. To everyone it is just another game but we all can learn from it.