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Features

Published February 2009

Leadership Lessons From the Sims

  

  Michael A. Roberto

Simulations engage learners in meaningful experiences that allow them to actively apply learning to real decision-making situations. But building an effective sim requires that instructors cede control and embrace divergent results.

How do I apply what I have learned? Every faculty member and leadership development professional has been confronted with that question by a skeptical listener at the end of a presentation or case discussion.

Most of us have a stock answer to that question for the particular topic we are teaching, but it does not always satisfy our audience. Occasionally, someone will get right to the heart of the matter by asking, “I understand what worked or didn’t work for the organization in the case study, but can I really build my judgment and leadership skills simply by reading about what others have done and discussing their approaches?”

In short, managers and students want to actively practice key skills and competencies as part of a leadership development program. They want us to take active learning to a whole new level. Active learning certainly beats passive learning, but are case studies sufficiently active? Can we enrich the experiential learning that takes place in our organizations and thereby enable people to improve by actively practicing the art of leadership?

It didn’t take me long as a young teacher to learn that I didn’t want to put students in a listen-only mode in my classroom. When students were actively engaged in discussion and working through problems, as with the case method at Harvard Business School, they were more motivated and invested in learning. As their instructor, I could assess their ability to synthesize the information from cases and give them feedback in real time.

However, in working with both MBA students and participants in executive education, I started to think about adding another dimension. Could we go beyond reading and talking about what the executives should have done in a case study and create a mechanism to give the students more real-life experience in decision making, teamwork and problem solving? How could we put the student in the case so they might experience what an executive saw? How can they be forced to react to the feedback he was getting minute to minute as he faced a challenge?

These questions led me to experiment with simulations, in which students use online technology to get information, make decisions and get immediate feedback on their choices and those of their colleagues in a particular program or class. Simulations bring climbing Mount Everest to life as a study in leadership, teams and decision making.

A multimedia case study about the Columbia space shuttle disaster teaches critical communication skills. In the Columbia multimedia experience, students are assigned the role of one of six team members at NASA. They experience the first eight days of Columbia’s final mission as that individual did. They listen to re-enactments of meetings in which the individuals participated, read their e-mails, review phone messages received and examine other data that the individuals examined during the mission.