"Serious Games and Leadership Development" Integrating the world of Serious Games and Leader Development, this session focuses on novel conceptual frameworks and approaches to understanding and leveraging the application of Serious Games in leadership development. The session will have a practitioner orientation combined with evidence-based research, focusing on methods that can be used in practice.

3. Four factors: Beliefs, Needs & Aspirations, Goals, Partnerships, have contributed to
“Serious
Games” becoming an autonomous idea; a brand, an innovative leader development
solution! How did it all begin?

4. BELIEF
My conviction that games are an effective teaching tool came from observing my son
Karthik’s obsessive interest in them, resulting in my gamifying daily events. A Serious
Game proposal to Infosys followed.

5. Needs
The pivotal need of Infosys was to succeed the founders. So, I explored with senior
leaders where the biggest opportunities lie for a serious game? This combined with
efforts to obtain the critical resources for game development.
The primary concern is to create a pipeline of leaders. The common, and
overwhelming, focus, and effort: Succession Preparedness

6. Goals
Infosys, to this end, had already created the Infosys Leadership Institute to develop a
stream of able leaders capable of exercising ‘Ethical Influence’ to increase our client
relevance.

7. Goals
ILI is committed to rigorous, research driven, assessment and training protocols to
identify potential, and to create personalized leadership-development plans and
vehicles.
One such vehicle, Grandmasters Of Influence effectively hones leaders’ persuasion
skills by providing a safe environment for leaders to learn, try, test, and perfect
strategies and ideas through trial and error.

8. Goals
The fact that this Serious Game is based upon longstanding and time-tested Infosys
Leadership dimensions, reinforces its credibility to the leaders.

9. Partnership:
Grandmasters of Influence simulates business bottlenecks and problems actually
troubling the leaders and teaches them to apply the leadership behaviors to their
resolution.
I have consciously, and actively, involved the leaders- the game's customers - in
creating Grandmasters of Influence to increase its relevance and immediacy to their
jobs.

10. Partnership
The game’s content and play environment emerged from the continuous refinement
of case studies drawn up from leader’s interviews into which the Infosys Leadership
Dimensions were incorporated to closely reflect reality.

11. In sum: beliefs, goals, partnerships and the satisfaction of pivotal needs and
aspirations establish Serious Games as a brand and an innovative leadership
development solution.

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26. The Serious Game at ILI:
• Integrates physical world and virtual world contexts
• Entrenches learners (leaders) in realistic situations
• Enables leaders to learn in a socially facilitated context