The cohort participating in the Business Acumen for Emerging Leaders learning journey was 
paralyzed. They didn’t know where to begin, what to do, or what was going to happen to them. As they read through their materials and analyzed the P&L statements and Market Reports, I heard a voice say, “I never realized how hard it was running a company.”
This is a common scenario for me as I travel around the world helping to build the Business Acumen skills of our client organizations through business simulation-centric learning engagements. A “Simulation-Centric” learning engagement is a talent development initiative that presents to learners new skills and tools on critical topics like strategic thinking, financial management, and understanding business results such as EBITDA and ROIC (Return on Invested Capital). After understanding the content, learners then apply their new skills in a digital business simulation which is a case study that comes to life. In this engagement, small teams of 6 were responsible for setting and executing the strategy of simulated business through operational decisions in a controlled time frame of 90 minutes.
One of the goals of the program was to develop skills around time management and prioritization as it’s very difficult to give equal timing to every decision in the simulated business. As a result, participants learned how to:
See the big picture
An enterprise business simulation provides the opportunity for learners to see the big picture ranging from the strategy and value proposition the company is offering to its customers, to tactical operational business decisions such as which raw material to use in the production of products.
Understanding the levers that drive success
An enterprise business simulation also provides the opportunity for learners to understand how all the “levers” of the business operate and which levers drive which outcomes of success. For example, if they lower price to drive volume, that also impacts the margins and overall operational efficiencies including the return in invested capital.
Resource allocations
A well-designed enterprise simulation has limited resources such as budget, staff, and access to capital. Participants must understand and prioritize what are the most important allocations that support the strategy and drive results.
Understanding impacts of decisions
Once the strategy is being executed through operational decisions, the simulation provides the opportunity to understand how every decision transcends the entire enterprise through the visualization of the impact of decisions. These impacts are manifested in results and increases or decreases in key metrics such as cash and budget.
Making adjustments
Once learners understand the enterprise of business and how decisions impact results, they then learn how to make adjustments. By reading and interpreting market trends, competitor results, and customer buying preferences, they make the needed adjustments to further drive success.
The best part of this entire experience, and all five key learnings, is how they impact time and resource management. They learn very quickly that time is their most precious resource and the simulation experience forces them to prioritize and manage their time. Instead of focusing on 20 things equally, they are able to focus on the 3-5 things that drive a majority of the results.
Time and time again, we hear in our feedback reports the lessons of time and prioritization are the most important skills that can be taken back to the “real world” and applied immediately.
