Leadership Development Simulations' New Home

Hello Simulation Development Group Community. This is going to be our new home for our notes/blog. We'll slowly transition over to this site. Welcome!

Getting Greener

We’re getting greener by the day. In January of 2009, SimDevGroup implemented improvements to reduce overall global waste. This includes waste from travel, office waste, program waste, and other sources. We’ve made huge improvements. We found that not only is this good for the environment, much of it is a big cost savings which is great for our customers as well. This is one of those rare win-win-win scenarios. Many thanks to Bill for taking this on and developing the program. So far, so good.

Some of ways we’re reducing waste:

Office Waste Reduction:

• Paper reduction- We’ve reduced paper by over 50%
• Successful switch to all Energy-Star compliant LCD displays
• Recycling laser toner cartridges
• Sharing less office space with European style open air layouts
• Biking to work rewards program- almost all of bike at least once a week
• Computer equipment recycling
• Overhead lights dim or off. We use natural light now

Travel Waste Reduction:

• Encouraging less travel- We’ve reduced travel by over 50%! Care for a video conference?
• Utilizing public transportation when traveling
• Re-using towels when in the hotels (if possible)

Program Waste Reduction:

• Printing 50% less at programs
• LCD projectors when possible
• Smaller/lighter equipment shipping containers

As mentioned above, most of the above has also reduced reoccurring costs which is great for everyone. If you have any other ideas for ways to reduce waste, feel free to drop us an email or make a comment.

Cheers to going green!

Leadership Competancies in Action

Let’s start with a chart. Here’s an example of somewhat standard leadership competencies:

Now that we have the great big colorful competencies up there, let’s assume the following:

• Your company has its own leadership behavior model (if not, that’s ok too)
• You have an entire program built or under construction that delivers this model (or close)
• You are unsure how to blend measurement and accountability into the program.... no prob!

You and/or your team are probably the pros at delivering the content. If not, don’t ask us :^) there are companies far better than SimDev to help with these competencies (ex: Caliper or PDI). Deliver the content as usual in your superb style.

The simulation maps very closely to your existing business. This includes market, internal, external, and cultural uniqueness. The difference is that while the participants are under pressure to execute their business plan, a facilitator is watching how they exhibit leadership competencies. The net net is that if they are great at leadership, their business execution is very effective. If their leadership behavior is very poor, they have a very difficult time executing their business plan. Thus, they loose market share, loose income, and quickly learn how important it is to invest in leadership and their people.

Basically, to win the simulation, they will have to be very competent at the following:

Its simple, to win, a team must be competent and leadership, business, and execution (teamwork).

What better way to put in play what you have delivered? This gives them the opportunity to practice and see how the importance of this drives EBITDA.

Business Leadership Simulations are exciting, applicable, and an effective part of leadership development.

Thoughts?
- SimDevTeam