By Jana Quinn
What your Favorite App Says About Your Management Style
Does your boss make you feel like losing hours to FarmVille or hiding in a bathroom stall to keep a 2048 game alive is a waste of company time? No, no, no! It’s simply a unique way to reflect on one’s own managerial style, which is an important component of professional development.*
The time you spend in recreation can often say a lot more about you than the time you spend with your nose to the grindstone. After all, when you strip away all the outside demands and interpersonal dynamics, you’re left to your true nature as a leader. How you choose to spend that time is completely up to you – and is far more revealing than you’d imagine.
Angry Birds – One of the first apps that truly exploded into a pop culture phenomenon, Angry Birds has instant name recognition and an obsessed fan base that spans across a wide age range. Angry Bird managers tend to break larger projects into smaller chunks and focus on the task at hand. This can help newer employees deal with an overwhelming demand on their learning curve and bring calm to season veterans finding themselves faced with new, unfamiliar technology. Another strength of an Angry Bird manager is that she knows how to match employee strengths to the tasks that need to be delegated. On the downside, this may not always provide the best individual growth for the employees as they’ll generally be pigeonholed with few if any opportunities to widen their skill set.
Fruit Ninja – Fruit Ninja followed on the heels of the success of Angry Birds but never quite overpowered its predecessor. A Fruit Ninja manager thrives in a chaotic environment where last minute deadlines and demanding clients are just another day at the office. This manager prepares the employees on his team to improvise and is comfortable with trusting them to follow their instincts. This type of manager is great for building a team with a strong sense of independence but may not be the best choice when dealing with a brand new set of hires.
FarmVille – FarmVille gained its popularity by becoming available as a flash game through Facebook. Managers with a FarmVille style tend to take their time, front loading the work in organization and planning for greater rewards and efficiency down the line. This manager also values teamwork that blends independence in her employee’s own area of expertise as well as a supportive environment where colleagues complement each others’ skills and serve as valuable resources for one another. This type of manager is not well-suited for a workplace environment with dramatic and frequent changes or short deadlines.
2048 – 2048 is the baby of the bunch, having just debuted early in 2014 as a sort of tweaked version of Threes, which never quite gained the popularity of 2048. Similarly, the 2048 manager is the young prodigy, the most recently educated and probably the most highly educated. This type of manager is methodical and calculated, providing very streamlined direction to his team. On the other hand, a 2048 manager does not cope well with setbacks and has difficulty adapting to obstacles or complications, due in part to lack of experience.
So which app suits your style – one of the above or something else entirely? How well do these descriptions fit you and other managers at your business?
*Let me know if this works.
Jana Quinn is a blog writer, social media dabbler, and promotional product describer. Read more of her content at the Branding Beat blog.
