Scene: a business simulation weekend outside Beijing, run by Cambridge Pragmatix with “Managing Business Today” (MBT), and with a single company group of managers from MND, a mining machinery company. The managers were drawn from MND’s senior teams in China, Thailand, and India. Although it was a well established simulation from a large range MBT have developed, some modification (translations for some of the sections of the board) to the standard simulation playing board have been made for the China market, but the language of the company and the simulation day was English.
An important feature of this version of the simulation was that it was credible for managers, some very senior, and was capable of realistic transfer into their own work world. This is not necessarily true of some other simulations, which limit the particpants' world view to say, a fruit business.
The most obvious early aspect of the simulation was that the facilitator needs substantial and in-depth knowledge of the game rules as well as of actually running it a good number of times in different situations. I suspect this is not something that can be quickly learned by a local licensee, and to an extent the credibility of the Cambridge Pragmatix / Managing Business Today simulation is therefore the quality of the person at the front of the room.
The Beijing facilitator on this occasion (flown out by Cambridge Pragmatix especially for the event) had to correct situations which only he could see were going to cause problems later on, and to know how to “roll back” from a decision by the teams. It was apparent that this is something that is in part handled by the well designed simulation, that has a degree of self-correction built in, but experience of running the process is essential. I doubt a start-up "localised" simulation provider could offer this degree of expertise, something worth bearing in mind if buying a simulation for a company.
It was also pretty obvious that there is a relationship between participant numbers and facilitation. To make the simulation come to life, one needs enough participants to make competing teams, but one cannot run with huge group sizes. In Beijing there were five teams of three and four people in each. This number of teams meant that a team of capable co-facilitators was needed. It would seem that in addition to an experienced facilitator, such co-facilitators are essential. The two from Cambridge Pragmatix working on this run of the simulation with Managing Business Today were able to handle a lot of the structure and transactions such as “the bank”, freeing the key facilitator to handle other issues and actually run the day.
The day (actually 2 – 3 days) really has to be very tightly structured, to ensure that the activity runs to a point of conclusion. At the same time, the participants need to learn the mechanics, or process of the simulation, and during day one they moved from conscious incompetence to conscious competence in the day. Again, the expertise of MBT and the Cambridge Pragmatix team showed through in making the simulation run to time, and at the same time to the right overnight point for day 1.
Senior managers, of whom there were several in the teams, have already exceeded "conscious competence" in many of the management skills they need to use at work. But they have to work within the environment of the simulation, so can’t fully use pre-acquired skills (such as business analysis) in the formative stages of "play". However, the relationship between the world of the simulation and that of the participants was well matched - they even named competing teams according to the real competitors in their sector, and were able to ascribe known business characteristics to these teams of competitors!
One of the things that often comes out with Management development is the way that managers get more pragmatic as they get older! The teams all have to buy into a degree of suspension of disbelief, and not spend time saying, “But actually, of course, we wouldn’t do that.” In work situations this pragmatism is a balance to the younger members of teams. But in the simulation situation, the less pragmatic will come up with remarks such as, “Oh, just spend a couple of `million and buy one!”, when really the case has not been well made. There is plenty of time for reflection on this behaviour and the consequences during the subsequent phases of the simulation.
The “world view” or “content” of the simulation also has an interesting dynamic when compared esimulations) the facilitator on this occasion (and to an extent the simulation itself) ruled out certain “content” which would affect the play. So for example in this version of the simulation the “workforce” represented zero cost, and another assumption was that the environment was tax-free. There was also an assumption that all the teams would start at the same financial position. But the simulation is capable of being skewed to represent established competitor positions, and so is applicable to real world learning needs. However, on this occasion changing the start position or the parameters would add complexity to the learning process that is not useful to the major objectives of the simulation.
Another of the characteristics of all training, (and of team building and role play in particular), is the what people learn outside the “taught content”. So for example, dominance and decision, making, impatience, analysis paralysis, are all visible to the participants and especially to the observer.
Whether these are brought out in the wrap up at the end is up to the facilitator and the commissioner of the day, and the purposes for which it is run. Naturally, with an established company team many of these incidental behaviours will not be a surprise, but with mixed company teams discovering these and their impact may be helpful learning capable of transfer back to the workplace along with other learning. This Managing Business Today simulation is also capable of use for, say competence assessment or language upskilling, but these might require a few adaptations to the realistic complexity it brings to business simulation as it is.
All in all, a very credible simulation, and one which engaged very senior managers for two days. Worth consideration if you are planning a management team build activity that doesn't involve trees and mud, and also produces strategiuc thinking. Not the cheapest, but value for money.
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