The end of September signifies many things including the end of the summer and the end of the business 3^rd quarter. It also signifies a host of new things such as the school year and football season. In the business world, this is when things get serious. It’s literally the 4^th quarter and if your business is down, it’s time to put some points on the board as time is running out. If your business is up, it’s time to maintain and then carry that momentum into the next year.

In another month or two all of the pundits and so-called experts will start writing their end-of-year, “year in review” articles and blogs and many of them will say basically the same thing.

So, I am going to beat them to the punch and share some early thoughts about the year in review from a learning and talent development perspective.

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Sales training is one of the biggest focus areas of many talent development and sales enablement strategies. Sales training includes methodology, selling skills, process, sales management, tools, frameworks, and product knowledge. However, while these competencies are important, there's an emerging and critical need to prioritize Business Acumen training to the top of the list.

During the past year, Advantexe has designed, developed, and delivered major sales training engagements for some of the most renowned sales teams on the planet. All of our engagements include a significant component of Business Acumen for Sales Professionals that provides the foundational skills to understand their customers’ business better and to also understand how their own companies generate profitable revenue.

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During the past few years, Advantexe has been involved in the design, development, and delivery of Coaching simulations to tens of thousands of people and process leaders. All of the simulations have a goal of providing participants with the opportunity to learn by doing as they practice having coaching conversations based on various coaching models. 

Before starting a project where we are delivering a coaching simulation, we have a serious conversation with the client about making sure they aren’t developing skills that coach for failure. It is a provocative approach, but one that our clients truly appreciate. Here’s why… 

There is a fundamental problem with most coaching frameworks and the way the organizations embrace them. Typically, the first step of coaching is setting goals and objectives and then having a dialogue about how to best achieve them. The fundamental problem is that most organizations aren’t providing the basic business acumen skillsneeded by every employee to understand their own business strategy and the financial skills to measure their success.

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As the dust settles on J&J’s recent separation of their fast-moving consumer healthcare products business, there is increased momentum and pressure for other big pharmaceutical companies to re-think their business portfolios.

I am 100% certain it will be a topic of discussion in many of our upcoming business acumen programs and several of our pharmaceutical business simulations actually allow participants to spin out product lines and entire businesses to see the impact strategically and financially.

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Every business simulation developed for our clients is designed with a set of learning objectives and outcomes in mind. For the most part, these objectives revolve around helping learners to better understand business acumen topics such as developing and executing business strategies, reading and applying financial statements, enhancing problem-solving and critical thinking abilities, and understanding cross-functional decision-making.

But should improved business acumen skills really be the objective of a simulation? It’s kind of crazy to think about, but should the outcome of a simulation-centric learning journey be something different? Could the true magic of business simulations be a learning environment that helps participants focus on how to be more collaborative and better team members when dealing with individuals with diverse backgrounds and personal goals?

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