How Business Simulations Can Help Ensure that Participants Pay Attention

A decade ago when other professional trainers would share their horror stories about participants zoning out, falling asleep, doodling for 8 hours, or doing work on their computers during their live training sessions, I’d quietly smile and pat myself on the back for never having any issues with participants paying attention during my sessions.  At the time, I thought the primary reason why our participants were so engaged was the use of our computer-based business simulations that provided the chance for participants to learn-by-doing and to learn by competing in an interactive and dynamic learning environment.  I also used to think that a small part of the reason for them paying attention was my awesome facilitation skills and informative, interactive training style in presenting business acumen related topics.

One of the most important concepts participants learn about when going through an Advantexe Business Acumen skill-building workshop is that differentiation of products/services is how you execute a strategy and attract customers.  Differentiation through product development is a controllable investment that companies can make and typically focus on such as enhanced:

This week’s travels took me to several different states for deliveries and meetings with clients regarding their business challenges.  One of the things that I try to do as a time and project management discipline – and also as fodder for my blogs – is to review my notes and observations from these interactions with clients to look for patterns and weak signals of potential disruption.

It’s been almost 10 years since John Kotter published his excellent and well-respected Harvard Business Review article detailing his hypothesis and rationale for why change efforts fail.  In his work, Kotter states that 60%-90% of all change efforts fail and the reasons for this failure rate is a combination of factors including:

Several years ago, at the suggestion of a client, I published a blog called A Business Acumen Thanksgiving 2014; Thankful or Worried?  I received a lot of positive feedback so I thought it would be a great idea to take a look at 3 business acumen factors impacting businesses’ around the world Thanksgiving 2016.  As a reminder, I look at the issue, what we should be thankful for and what we should be worried about.

So enjoy a safe and healthy Thanksgiving weekend in the US and don’t let your brain turn into a pile of sweet potatoes! Please feel free to comment or leave a message!