6 Actionable Skills To Become A Better Manager Learned Playing Video Games
From high-rank player to top 1% income…
Gaming isn’t just about entertainment.
That’s something mainstream media will never understand.
It’s 2024 now, and a large part of the world still considers video games a waste of time.
I’ve played them competitively for over six thousand hours and reached the top ranks in multiple highly competitive games, such as League Of Legends or Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
Most people would call me dumb.
I could have done more valuable activities during those hours.
But they don’t realize that while playing video games seriously, you develop crucial skills that will help you in your everyday life.
In today’s article, I’ll talk about how those skills helped me reach the top 1% of my country’s income as a lead developer in IT
And how to apply them to your everyday life to boost your career success.
The team above all else
If you have yet to play video games competitively, there is one thing you need to know.
Like in any other team sport, the game's goal is to win so you can earn points, climb the ranked ladder, and be the best in your region.
However, unlike other sports, you can start a game alone. At the start of every game, you are matched with random players to build your team.
And sadly, like social media, being behind a screen brings out the worst in people.
Everyone in your team seems to hate each other, doesn’t want to win, or doesn’t even want to play.
As soon as something goes wrong in their game, they crack. Start insulting each other for the stupidest reason and ruin the game for everyone — well, expect the enemy team that wins the game for free.
You’re wondering why they even started the game in those conditions.
That’s when you learn an important lesson: not everyone is mentally strong.
We’re all humans; we all have issues, and some are more affected than others.
Gamers start games to escape their everyday lives, and sometimes, their anger catches up with them, and they release it on their teammates.
To succeed, you must become their lighthouse, guiding them towards mental clarity.
In most of my games, I became the psychologist for angered children I never knew I was:
- “Guys, everything will be okay; focus on the game's goal.”
- “No, he did not get you killed on purpose. It was a miscommunication.”
- “It’s okay if you died, I’ll come to help you get ahead again. We’ll win this easily.”
- “Damn! Good job on that play; you’re the best.”
You get the gist.
Where am I going with this?
Well, guess what? Ten years later, those same people are now on my team at work.
They’re grown up and behaving more professionally, but you find the same patterns:
- Trying to shift the blame from their mistake to someone else
- Having issues expressing their emotion
- Preferring dodging problems to facing them head-on
- Focused on their own things instead of the team goals
That’s where your years of experience trying to climb the competitive ladder come into play.
1 — Be empathic; try and put yourself in other people’s shoes.
Even if people act up towards you, answering with kindness will always bring better results than jumping in the aggressive boat.
Kill them with kindness — Shakespeare
Everyone has bad days or is stressed out by something. Be forgiving.
A nasty comment from your coworker does not mean he’s a bad person.
You have no idea what is going on in their lives. While it’s not a reason to treat others poorly, you can be the bigger person and move on by being understanding.
2 — Give public praise. Often.
You can be sure my teammates always started playing seriously again when I told them how good they were, even if it was after the most trivial plays.
Some leaders don’t realize how important publicly praising their coworkers is.
Everybody remembers praise. Hell, I remember someone telling me I was smart ten years ago, and I’ll probably cherish that for the next ten years.
If a member of your team is doing a good job. Make sure everybody knows about it.
They will appreciate you for it.
3 — Try and be friends with everyone
There is a saying that you can’t be friends with everyone. Well, you can’t, but you can try.
Work on remembering people’s names, smiling, and asking them how their weekend went. Be interested in their lives.
Of course, it has to be genuine.
I’m myself pretty introverted so it’s not an easy task. But it will be the difference between getting help from someone when needed and being left on “seen.”
4 — Ignore rude comments
I said earlier that being behind a screen can bring out the worst in people; they can be just as mean in real life — maybe without insults.
In the game, you can mute someone bad-mouthing you. Sadly, that’s not possible outside the game.
The best quality you can develop is to ignore rude comments or stressed-out people trying to pass on their stress to you.
I know it’s hard. I used to be affected by everything people said. I remember being on the edge of tears once when someone harshly criticized me for not changing a set of permissions in a docker volume while doing a production release (I’m sorry for my non-technical readers).
Nobody told me we had to do it; I had no access, and it wasn’t my job. I should have just ignored her and moved on with my life.
Not every criticism is constructive, so move on for your own sake.
Learning from your mistakes
No, elo hell does not exist!
I need to introduce this concept to my non-gamers readers first.
Elo hell is a concept in which you’re supposedly too good to be at your current low rank. But all of your teammates are so bad that you keep losing. Thus, you can’t climb and stay stuck at a lower rank.
People who complain about “elo hell” don’t realize how many mistakes they make in-game.
The first step to growing as a gamer and as a person is to realize that you are making mistakes — everybody does.
I used to register my games and watch the replays. It’s crazy how much you miss while being focused.
We think we see ourselves and the world as they really are, but we’re actually missing a whole lot — the invisible gorilla study
In the “invisible gorilla ”experiment, Harvard psychologists Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons proved that the human brain misses obvious information when focused on a task. I won’t spoil the experiment, but I highly recommend you go and try it here.
It’s the same in your everyday work life.
You will make mistakes. However, how you react afterward defines whether you will succeed or not.
5 — Always reflect on past events.
You need to reflect actively on everything you’re doing.
While the Scrum methodology is not perfect, there is a great concept called “Retrospective.” It asks the team to discuss the past weeks to identify areas for improvement.
It’s also used to praise the team's correct actions and ensure they are ingrained in everyone’s mind.
Use this concept in your life even if you’re not using Scrum.
After a long task or project ends, ask yourself those three questions:
- What did I do wrong?
- What could I have done better?
- What did I do correctly?
Introspection is one of the best ways to learn. And iterate, you won’t fix your issues by trying to fix them once. It will take time and repetition.
6 — Accept constructive criticism
Like I said, you will miss important information that will make you feel like you made no mistakes.
You can try introspection, but sometimes, you don’t know what you did wrong, so you tend to go the blame-shifting way.
That’s where you need to learn to listen to your peers.
If your boss doesn’t tell you what he thinks went wrong, ask him directly. If it’s not your boss, ask your coworker.
Get an external view.
I used to ask our team coach — yes, I played video games this seriously — what he thought of a particular play when I couldn’t figure out the mistake.
In video games or real life, it’s sometimes unclear whether you caused the problem or if at least your actions could have avoided it.
- “I asked him to send me the file, but he never did. That’s not my fault we failed to deliver on time.” Well, maybe asking him once during the coffee break was not enough.
- “I just reused the piece of code he sent me. That’s his fault the production is down. “ Maybe you shouldn’t blindly trust everyone and carefully test the code you own.
There is always potential for improvement. You have to look for it and be open to criticism.
Discovering management at 18 in my bedroom was not something I expected when I started playing competitively.
And seeing that many parallels between my days as a competitive gamer and a team lead at work wasn’t either.
I’ve learned that managing people is not easy, but it can be fulfilling and bring great results when done correctly.
I hope you liked this article and that it changed your view on what playing competitively could be like.
If you’re a gamer reading this, chill out. Stop taking it so seriously. Step back, and you’ll see yourself climbing the ranks at lightspeed.
Thanks for reading until the end; if you liked this article, you can add me on Linkedin or X (Twitter) for more content like this one.
