The first quarter of 2024 is now in the books. From a value creation perspective, the S&P index has grown by about 10% and the Dow Jones Index by about 6%. This strong and steady growth has occurred in the face of continued volatility coming from socio-economic issues, inflation, the unemployment rate, weather conditions, and world population health factors.

One of the most important pieces of research Advantexe continually seeks is information gathered from our Training and Development clients to understand what skills they are looking to develop for the rest of the year and beyond.

Based on our continued conversations and surveys in Q1, 2024, the top three skills large, global organizations are seeking to develop are:

• Collaboration
• Business Acumen
• Leading a Culture of Innovation

What has been interesting to discover is the consistency of both the definition and focus on these specific skills they are seeking to solve. That hasn’t always been the case. For example, a year ago the most important skill companies were looking to develop was providing feedback as a form of coaching. What many found out was there is no one definite and easy definition or methodology for teaching how to give effective feedback. Here at Advantexe, we implemented several major Coaching & Feedback simulations, and they are all growing into the 2^nd and 3^rd year of implementation which means immersive, practice-based learning is one of the only ways to teach those skills.

Read More >

As the business world continues to evolve, and as access to more information becomes overwhelming to many employees, it is more important to business decision-making that all employees have the skills and tools they can get to absorb and deal with the “hot business topics” of the day.

As part of our mission, the Advantexe team continues to research this concept and think about different solutions to offer our clients including the idea of a portfolio of “hot topic business simulations” on a subscription basis which would continue to build the business acumen skills of our client in a unique, interesting, and dynamic way.

While the continued development of these ideas and technologies moves ahead, I am thrilled to share with subscribers to this blog some of our ideas and insights about why hot topic learning is critical to leadership and business development.

Read More >

Yesterday, I had the privilege of facilitating an innovative new digital business simulation called, “The Escape Room Simulation” and it was a blast. Our client was looking for a new and fun way to get people to understand a significant new process and they asked us to develop a customized escape room simulation.

An escape room simulation is a type of immersive adventure game where participants are "locked" in a themed room and must solve a series of puzzles, riddles, and challenges within a set time limit to "escape" from the room. These simulations typically require teamwork, critical thinking, problem-solving skills, and creativity to decipher clues, unlock hidden mechanisms, and ultimately progress through the scenario.

The session went amazingly well so I wanted to share some of the benefits of this type of simulation experience. Escape room simulations offer several benefits, both for individuals and groups, including:

Read More >

One of Advantexe’s great existing clients who works with us on three different developmental programs (two in Business Acumen and one in Business Leadership) emailed asking about a new simulation we just released in our most recent simulation catalog.

“What can you tell me about this new Building Trust simulation? I love the idea of some sort of exercise that helps our leaders understand how to build trust by practicing, not just having some speaker talk at them for a couple of hours.”

I shared the highlights of the three immersive, interactive scenarios that provide learners with the opportunity to develop their leadership skills in the area of building trust by taking on the role of a leader in a simulated environment pulling the right levers to build trust with the characters in the simulated world. She loved it and asked me if I would help create some talking points for her to use with key stakeholders to have them support the implementation of a pilot. I said, of course, and am pleased to share what we came up with in this blog.

Read More >

Being “ghosted” by a customer, colleague, supplier, or anyone else in your business ecosystem that have an established relationship with can be very unsettling. Being ghosted refers to the sudden and unexplained cessation of any and all communications without any idea why. In most cases, you have reached out with good intent, and haven’t done anything “wrong,” but nothing.

Pure “radio silence.”

In a typical non-sales business environment (being ghosted in sales is another blog for another day), being ghosted can be awkward, confusing, and very frustrating.

Based on some recent discussions coming from our Business Leadership workshops, I put together some interesting insights and best practices on 3 things you can do when you are being ghosted in a typical business scenario.

Read More >