5 Leadership Lessons from Playing Angry Birds

Many of your friends may have moved on from playing Angry Birds. Silicon Valley millennials may being playing Dots, Minecraft, or Fruit Ninja. Maybe you don't play games on your smartphone. Maybe the idea of exploiting emotionally-charged birds to destroy green, so-called bad piggies, who are hiding in their homes and, presumably, minding their own business is repugnant to you. That Angry Birds is a game phenomenon having grown into a vastly popular brand is undeniable.

Angry Birds allows the player to use birds with specific skills to destroy a defensive structure inhabited by bad piggies. When all of the bad piggies are destroyed, the puzzle is solved and the player can go to the next level.

BUT, Angry Birds also gives you an opportunity to experience five important leadership lessons. At the beginning of each level, the player is given a team of birds with skills that are adequate for solving that particular puzzle. The birds are used in a pre-arranged order, much like a batting order in baseball.

What can Angry Birds teach you about leadership? First, a leader needs to understand the skills and key strengths of each team member. Not everyone can do the same things equally well. Learn what key strengths and talents your team members have to maximize the results.

Second, match the team to the problem at hand. In Angry Birds, you have to use the team you're given, but that team is designed to solve the problem. In real life, make sure you design your team with the skills necessary to address the problem.

Third, have a plan of attack. Take some time to study the problem and review the resources that are available to you. Make a plan - at least a high-level plan - about how to get started and how to best use the team.

Fourth, when necessary, adjust your tactics to match the skills that are available. A poor performance might create a need to adjust the expectations on other team members. An outstanding performance may present an opportunity to capitalize on a special situation. Using baseball as an example, say a batter strikes out, so the next batter up is instructed to to do something different than would have been the case if the previous batter had gotten on base. Or, maybe a batter hits a triple and now the manager sees a special opportunity to take advantage of the situation and uses the next batter's skills in a different manner.

Finally, be flexible enough to modify the plan when events don't proceed as you hoped they would. Strategy is planning, but tactics are dictated by circumstances. An especially strong, or weak, performance; or, an especially good or bad bit of luck can signal the effective leader to modify the original plan. Things may become easier than anticipated. Things may become more difficult than anticipated. Risk factors may be either heightened or lessened. The effective leader is flexible enough to see, understand, and act accordingly.

Apple Really is Smarter Than You

Face it. You really aren't as smart as Apple. You quite possibly are as smart as any given individual at Apple, even Tim Cook or Jony Ive. But, you're not as smart as the whole Apple team is.

They have many times more collective experience than you can possibly have. They have a deep history of successful execution. They have a deep history of failure. They have more data inputs and more data analysis capabilities. They come from a culture specifically designed to be smart and to sustain intelligence.

They live in a learning culture, where the expectation is to always be moving forward. They add new talent. They acquire companies to add intellectual property and power. They file patents and experiment on product developments that never get built. They kill products, even successful ones.

They also know who they are and what Apple is. As a result, they do what they do, not what someone else does or expects them to do. Although they are rarely ever on the bleeding edge of technology leadership, they're not really followers either.

They make geeky tech stuff sexy, appealing, and fashionable. They make engineering innovations look incremental and mundane, almost as if anybody could do it. A new product announcement comes along for something that no one has ever seen or is the best anyone has ever seen and it's received as just another day at the office. Almost any company in the world would be happy with just one Apple-style hit product.

You think they should offer more options, add more features, make a bigger phone, make a smaller tablet, tack on a keyboard, support Flash, increase the megapixels, include expansion ports, blah blah blah. You think the price is too high. You think the system is too closed. You think gold is silly or the colors are yucky.

It really is time to take a long hard look in the mirror and ask yourself who has the track record here. For roughly the last 16 years, Apple has been unrivaled in designing and building great products, delivering excellent profits, and creating shareholder value. You may hate Apple or its products. You may prefer other consumer electronics or investments in other companies. Fine.

If you really think you're smarter and know better about what to do or how to do it, then get out there and get to work. We'd all love to see it. We're waiting...

5 Reasons Why You Should Play Angry Birds

Back in the old days, around 2009 or so, it seemed like everyone was playing Angry Birds. Everyone, that is, but me. My sons and their friends. Adults, teenagers, pre-teens, millennials - had their noses buried in their iPhones as they focused intently on controlling a menagerie of flying weapons. In my mind, playing was something to be avoided. I refused to get sucked in to the vortex.

A couple of years passed and, somehow, it happened. I downloaded the game and entered the world of Angry Birds. The addiction was instant. I erased all the other games on my phone. I gave up my beloved NY Times crossword. Angry Birds became my recreational activity of choice. Never mind that many of the people I knew had moved on to other diversions. For me, AB was a fun way to decompress, relax, and chill.

I got mad at myself - remembering all those times I made fun of the kids for being suckers. Thinking of all that time that I was wasting playing this maddening game. Frustrated by repeated failures at a given level. Obsessed by a need to achieve success and move on.

Reflecting on the dozens or hundreds (maybe thousands?) of times I've now played AB, a realization developed for me. Angry Birds can teach us a lot about performance, success and failure, and perseverance.

If you've never played, Angry Birds is essentially a set of puzzles. A player deploys a specialized assortment of angry birds individually (a team) to collapse an elaborate defense system thereby defeating the bad piggies and solving the puzzle. Each bird on the "team" gets a turn...sort of like in kickball or baseball.

What can you learn by playing? Angry Birds teaches five important lessons.

A great performance by one team member does not guarantee a win.
A poor performance by one team member does not guarantee a defeat.
There are several paths to a victory.
It ain't over, 'til it's over.
A plan is a good thing, but being flexible is critical.

Great performances are exciting and dramatic. They're fun to watch. They can be inspiring. They do not guarantee that you'll win though. Many is the team that went to defeat while a star excelled.

By the same token, a below average or poor performance can be overcome and victory gained in spite of it. Whether by luck, a great performance by someone else, or a glaring weakness in the competition, some teams find a way to overcome an individual  poor performance and win.

Victory often comes in unexpected ways. No two victories are ever exactly alike. For whatever reasons, each victory can seem like its very own special and unique experience.

For every team, in every situation that won at the last possible moment; on the last play; on the last shot; with no time remaining on the clock; in a great comeback; there was another team that lost; collapsed; choked; was defeated; that somehow stopped or fell short.

Good planning is essential, but things rarely ever go the way they're "supposed" to. You have to adjust to circumstances. Flexibility is crucial to success.