Learning Corporate Strategy Through Experience

Hello SimDevGroup Community-

Has anyone ever told you their strategy? If so, you've probably said, "Oh great, I see. But why this strategy and how do I fit into it?" This is a very common reaction. How about the other side of the equation... Have you ever told someone your company's strategy and all you see is a slightly tilted head with squinted eyes? Probably. The best way to learn about the 'why' behind a corporate strategy is to experience it. Experience will help your employees learn why you've chosen the strategy and why its the best solution.

The only problem is experience takes a long time and can be risky. This is where a business learning simulation comes in. In a very short amount of time, your employees can quickly learn about your corporate strategy, how they fit in, and how their division can contribute. Best of all, there's next to no risk and its very quick. In one full day, your employees can experience a day in your shoes. This will help answer the questions: Why this strategy, how can I help, and when is this going to happen. These are critical components to a successful strategic execution. Effective strategic leadership requires your employees to learn about your strategy. A custom business simulation is a key and effective solution.

Adaptive Learning Simulations

Hello SimDev Community-

How great would it be if a competitive business learning simulation could learn? Traditionally, competitive simulations have an organic adaptability because we as humans are driving the forces naturally. But what if an additional layer was added at a global level. That would be intense. You may be asking, "What does this mean? And how does this relate to learning simulations for training and development?" Let us explain a little....

Say everyone is making decisions within the simulation as usual. What the simulation would do is dynamically look for trends, patterns, or habits. The sim would then compare this to a standard range. If participants as a whole fell into a new range, the learning simulation would dynamically adjust the entire experience.

In a sense, what this accomplishes is adding linear intelligence. This isn't artificial intelligence by any means. But this changes the rules of the game on the fly. This is similar to what happens in the real world. As crowds congregate, crowd dynamics change organically. The difference here is that the learning simulation would set the new changes based on crowd movement.

We thought a learning simulation that watches, learns, and reacts is the next logic step in the evolution of business learning and training simulations.

Thoughts?
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Software vs. Business Acumen vs. Leadership Development Simulations

Hello Simdev Community-

We apologize for a tardy post. It's been a little hectic lately, but we're back with a post about Simulation Software vs. Business Acumen, vs. Leadership Development. Here goes:

What is the different between Custom Business Training Simulation Software, Business Acumen Simulation, and Leadership Development Simulations? Answer: TONS! It feels like we have two camps of people who call us: Those that want leadership development training simulation and those that are looking for more of a business acumen simulation. Remember, we are a software development firm that specializes in developing custom business simulations for corporate development. So thus, software would be called a 'Global Parameter' when coding. This means that all of our business simulations are software based (aka: we aren't a consulting firm). But, do to the nature of this job, we have a very very firm understanding of corporate development practices and the needs of effective leadership development.

On to business acumen vs. leadership development. Without going into too much detail: Business acumen could be viewed as a technical skill. This often helps answer questions such as, "How does the business work? How do I manage and income statement? How do I effectively grow the business while managing cash flow?" In comparison, leadership development might answer questions such as, "How do I become an effective leader? How do utilize the internal leadership competencies? How do I effectively manage and grow diverse global organizations?"

Here's the catch: To be an effective Senior Manager: You need both business acumen and leadership development. A custom business training simulation should have both of these qualities. This will help develop your bench for tomorrow.

Ok, in summary: Business Acumen is having a solid foundation of effective business management skills and Leadership Development has a solid foundation of effective people and business leadership management. From our perspective, they are all developed in software to enable your leaders to practice business acumen and apply your internal leadership models.

Have a great week!
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Trends: More Ownership

Hello SimDev Community-

A quick post about what the latest trends are from our business simulation customers: Full Ownership! What does this mean?

Traditionally, business training simulations are delivered by Simulation Development Group. But for the past year, full ownership, where the business simulations are delivered by the training and development division, has grown. "How much has business simulation ownership grown?" you might be asking. In 2010 alone, we've seen a 27% increase over 2009. In 2009, we saw significant changes as well.

We think it is important for the learning and development division to deliver custom business simulations. You should be in front of your leaders and we should be the invisible support in the background.

Way to go everyone! Keep delivering those custom business simulations!
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Organizational Silos and Thier Impact

We have started to talk about business silos or organizational silos recently. The past couple weeks, we've been traveling since the business simulation delivery season is kicking into high gear. But we wanted to take a second to relay some anecdotal information shared with us recently. The topic is organizational silos and their impact.

A CEO sat down with us to share his frustration with the constant fighting between his engineering and marketing departments. He suggested this business silo thinking has always been there since he took over as CEO, but that it had gotten far worse with the influence of the generationals. It has now become a crisis for him. The organizational silos were each driving their own agendas with public disinterest in working with eachother.

The CEO had tried everything to address this business silo problem. This included: Communication training, team building, and forced weekly cross functional meetings. He stated that it only seemed to make things worse. This is where he had the idea to let each department live a day in the other department without increasing risk to the overall organization. Thus, a business training simulation seemed to be the ideal solution.

We'll soon share with you some of the feedback. We are due to begin rolling out this "Business Silo Busting" solution soon. Stay tuned :).

Have a great rest of the week.

Business Silos and Business Training Simulations

Hello SimDev Community-

We hope you had a wonderful Labor Day weekend and are looking forward to hitting the working ground running.

We have talked extensively in the past about utilizing a business training simulation within your leadership development or executive development programs. We have another growing trend to bring up that is increasing in popularity lately: Silos.

We're not referring to the large containers that hold grain. We're talking about functional silos, organizational silos, informational silos or business silos. If you work in a larger company you are painfully aware of this "problem".

How about utilizing a custom business simulation to help tear down these silos? Think about it. This blog is going to focus on this for a few posting. This post is just a teaser. More to come soon!

Have a great week!

You're The Business Training Expert!

Hello SimDev Community-

We hope you've had a terrific summer and are looking forward to gearing up for Fall.

We want to be clear here: Simulation Development Group creates simulations and exercises around your content. We don't try to be something we're not. You are the expert at your discipline and we are experts at building engaging and exciting tools around your leadership, executive, and corporate development needs.

Why do we bring this up? For two reasons:
1. We aren't trying to sell something we can't do a good job at. We're terrible sales people and aren't skilled enough at sales to sell something we don't do.
2. We've been receiving a lot of requests to build entire leadership development program(s). We build the best tools in the world to support incredibly complex programs, but we don't write the courseware. To be honest, you don't want us to. There are exceptionally talented people out there that do this far better than we do.

We hate to un-sell ourselves, but we believe in focus. We create tools, simulations, exercises and solutions that focus on re-inforcing your training content through business applicable action. Who does a great job with content? There are many. There is one that we've been talking with lately that seems to really be on the ball and is a joy to work with. Web site is here: Ratcliff Consultants, Inc. We hope this reference helps. Why this one? Because it's one of the few we've come across that not only is an expert at subject matter, but expert at building a program around tangible outcomes.

We hope this helps you with your leadership development, executive development, or staff development needs.

If you need help creating tools, simulations, exercises and solutions that focus on re-inforcing your training content through business applicable action. Then give a call or drop us a line.

Have a great day!
- Simulation Development Group
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