Member-only story
What City Builder Games Like Surviving Mars Can Teach Us About Effective Management
I started playing the city builder, or more specifically, the Mars colonization game Surviving Mars in the early days of the pandemic. I had been promoted to a middle management position at the company I was working for at the time only three months before the full-blown effects of the pandemic hit Western Europe. As a digital enterprise, we had a sudden temporary spike in demand while the world was going into lockdown. As a newly minted manager, it was a very challenging situation to deal with, and to wind down in the solitary evenings, I took to an old hobby of mine: gaming. Why not escape to the barren surfaces of Mars while our world grinds to a halt?
It was all good an well at first, but as I got a few hours into the game, a feeling of similarity came to me, and I got up to ask myself: why the heck am I playing this game? It’s effectively emulating what I’ve been doing all day at work. That’s where I began to see how brilliantly the game’s mechanics were emulating management best practices. Below are the points that stood out to me the most.
Before we get into it, please note that “colonist” can be used interchangeably with “team member” in most of the described cases below, and “colony” roughly translates to “business.”
Who boards the rocket to join your Mars colony matters
I’ve made the mistake of letting just any colonist applicants board the rocket to my Mars colony in the game. Don’t be lazy here or rush into things.
The game gives you information about the work specialization, traits, perks, and weaknesses of the potential colonists that want to join your mission. It’s critical to the success of your endeavor that you take your time to properly screen and assess each member that you want to join your colony — or team. You need your colonists’ skill sets to be optimized for the tasks at hand and also fit in well with each other on an interpersonal level.
Be mindful of your resources
Don’t build more than you can afford in maintenance costs.
Another example in surviving Mars is services.
Sometimes you need to learn to work with the resources that you have. This can…
