Business Simulations: Managing the ‘Learning – Doing’ Gap
“Philip Atkinson contends that change takes too long to install in too many organisations and suggests we move away from the traditional ‘launch, train and then painfully and patiently wait for results. In this article Philip suggests that we design and orchestrate business simulations to facilitate the installation of any initiative in a tight time frame”
In too many instances the time taken for change initiatives to filter from the top through the organisation creates a vacuum of inactivity. An initiative may be well designed but a failure to create and maintain the ‘enthusiasm,’ that once characterised the commencement of an improvement drive, can be lost because of a failure to imbed and implement the ideas of the change quickly. There is too much time devoted to ‘knowing’ the details about the change, rather than actually implementing and ‘doing it,’ thus becoming business as usual.
Through business simulations you can………
Assess those customers which you are most at risk of losing, and develop strategies to retain them
Develop strategies to win new customers and penetrate new markets
Analyse competitors’ competencies and better them
Assess and re-energise sales strategies in specific markets and varying contexts
Develop and motivate sales teams to achieve high performance
Radically improve quality and reduce unnecessary costs
Significantly contribute to business improvement, reducing cycle time, eradicating waste, winning new business, focusing resources, creating error free processes
Creating a performance driven culture
Designing and implementing leadership profiles, delivering business results
Best Practice Implementing & Installing Change
To make change implementation stick requires creativity, branding and selling of the core concepts and actions necessary for the change to be successful. This is where the design of business simulations can aid the installation of a change initiative. We are aware that as many as 70-80% of change initiatives do not work, yet we still apply the ‘old technologies’ of launch, roll-out and then patiently wait for results. These results often percolate through in an inconsistent manner as the concepts, once fresh and vibrant, are dissipated and distilled slowly. This is indicative of most change initiatives and is not due to the ‘change itself’ but rather to the appalling manner which it is managed. How much better to have an initiative driven and ‘pulled’ through the culture via a carefully designed process rather than the alternative of an initiative which is ‘pushed’ on, rather than willingly absorbed by all parts of the business.
Installing Rapid Improvement
Instead of trust in the ‘patient persistence’ of training activities permeating slowly working through the business, the alternative could be a carefully and skilfully designed learning experience to install the key concepts and initiate the core processes by which the business can accommodate the change quickly, with precision and certainty.
Business simulations are gathering ground, and the best are simple to understand, appeal to the emotions of people, are inspiring and tailored to the special needs of the organisation. There is an alternative to running around with laptops, downloading data from websites and working through endless number crunching exercises.
People not technology Drive Results
Substantial business improvement is totally dependent on achieving results for customers through the efforts and talents of the organisation’s people. Simulations which put technology first and people last can provide slick results but do they lead to actual business improvement? Focus on energising people to challenge the process of doing and performing better. Superior customer retention, acquisition, teamwork and a rise in morale do not arise solely from processing of technological improvement. Improvement come from people working together in a seamless unity with a shared direction and vision for improvement.
Business Simulation Tailored to Context of Change
Business simulations can range from small events for launching a new product or service or for a specific geographic region (i.e. such as a new product launch) to creating a local communications or improvement programme for a specific sales team. Larger events include working with a business to create a ‘strategic refocusing’ of the business, commencing and initiating a ‘programme of rapid improvement’ tied in with a tangible and measured suggestion scheme or process of continuous innovation. Other events would be launching a Leadership Process, creating a vibrant motivational theme for team building, standard cost reduction, a customer acquisition and retention initiative and new sales and marketing strategy to raise the company to new levels.
Impacting Business Results
All these events have to have impact upon the focus of the business, radically infuse the alignment of people to the project, and deliver immediate and longer term results that are measured against set and agreed criteria. These events are pretty well unique, and if the process is managed and controlled post event, it can become self-sustaining, providing the organisation commits to training some key people to become the initiative champions, to keep a paced momentum.
The events are driven by a high investment in designing a unique learning event around the specific culture of the business. They must be tailored to the client’s precise needs.
Keep up the Pace of Change Installation
It is interesting that the pace at which change needs to be installed as part of the culture of any business is decreasing. Business simulations can ease and compress the installation of change installation. Many organisations now realise that ‘change takes as long as you want it to take’ and are adopting a new approach to change. Committing to designing outcomes around installation and new behaviours occupies the minds of designers and clients who want to tailor make solutions to their problems. It is interesting to witness organisations which want to install ‘best practice’ to drive their organisations to become learning machines. The focus of change in the first decade of the 21st C is to rapidly close the ‘Knowing-Doing’ gap and encourage businesses to become self-sustaining change machines.
Extract from Philip Atkinson’s new book “How to become a Change Master,” Spiro Press, Summer 2004
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