Education & Training
Talent Catalyst
Talent development needs each manager to own developing both team and self. This new competitive, team-based game shows how development boosts performance, and achieves this.
Field of Expertise
Creating serious games and business simulations that change attitudes and performance, improving business results.
Expertise
People learn and change their behaviour when they are emotionally engaged in a task, get immediate feedback on their efforts, and can see how to use the learning immediately in their work. I create fun, engaging and work-realistic exercises that help them do this. Business results come from people, and changing the way they work (individually and together) depends on changing beliefs, attitudes, and strategies, and sometimes gaining knowledge. I catalyse these changes by creating immersive learning experiences that: # build self-awareness # help people gain a systems view of their business # show how their actions cause business results # allow them to practise and embed new skills # help them learn new concepts in a work-relevant context # show them the benefits of using the new thinking & skills. I start by analysing the new knowledge, changes in attitude and behaviour, and business results that the client seeks. I learn from them about the business context in which the learning is to be used. I then create exercises (from a few minutes to a few days long) that provide an opportunity for these learnings to be gained from personal experience in the exercise. Most of these exercises are serious games which involve small teams working together, making decisions and seeing the results, in a competitive context. Many are physical simulations where people work together to produce physical products, or board games (without dice), some are delivered remotely, and some have computer simulations as part of the learning environment. My solutions have been used at Nestle for over 20 years (Creating Value: a board game for understanding finance), Harvard Business School for 10 years (a 2-day "in-person" general management simulation to start the MBA programme), Roche for 16 years (for the last 6 years, a 2-day simulation of the process of filing a new drug marketing application, which involves 12 technical functions collaborating virtually for months to produce the massive submission document, and focusing on cross-functional teamwork), and over 100 others. My expertise is in the detailed understanding I develop of the client's context and problem, the creativity that I bring to conceptualising a solution, and the experience I have of what actually works, built up through decades of experimentation, feedback and reflection. While I am not an expert on many of the topics I have been asked to help people learn, I am able to build a context in which the learning will reliably happen, while people are deeply engaged, and usually having fun.