It is currently 3 p.m. on a Thursday, and you have just hit the bottom of your third mug of coffee for the day. The reason behind this? You are stuck in a cold, windowless room listening to a lovely member of your HR team who, unfortunately, has been tasked with reading the script on How to Be a Better Boss. Though it is exciting to believe that you are on the path to corporate success, it comes with the pain of being told how to get there.
Long lectures, outdated videos, and guest speakers who can’t effectively engage their audience don’t do justice to the valuable topic of leadership development. Even though these methods may contain useful advice, they are only impactful if the participants in the room are actually awake.
At Insight Experience, we believe leadership development should be fun, engaging, and highly impactful. In our 20+ years of experience working with leaders at Fortune 1000 companies, we’ve found that experiences that actively engage leaders in a shared challenge and leverage the collective genius within a cohort are the main ingredient in the recipe for an impactful and transformative leadership development experience. In sum, they are anything but your grandparents’ leadership development program.
Active Engagement
To create a memorable and impactful experience, participants need to be actively engaged. In 2019, Louis Deslauriers and his colleagues at Harvard University hypothesized that active learning leads to higher knowledge retention. To put this hypothesis to the test, researchers used a randomized experimental approach with a group of 149 students enrolled in a physics course. During the 12th week of the physics course, the students were divided two groups: active and passive learning, both using identical course materials. To determine the effectiveness of this experiment, students were tested using multiple-choice learning assessments after each session.
Deslauriers et al. reported that “students in active classrooms scored almost half an SD (0.46) higher on the examination. These results are highly significant (P < 0.001).” The takeaway from this study is that the active learning group outperformed, demonstrating its effectiveness.
At Insight Experience, we use business simulations to create immersive learning experiences that actively engage participants. Business simulations offer practical, hands-on experiences, enabling participants to make risk-free decisions in a controlled environment.
Through meticulous design and facilitation, our ART methodology ensures that experiences are both engaging and development-focused. We start with (A)rtful Design where our expert designers integrate learning content, a hands-on business simulation experience, and dedicated reflection activities enabling leaders to turn their insights into more effective leadership. This design is brought to life through (R)obust Facilitation that prompts participants to see the connection between their leadership behaviors and the business outcomes they drive. Throughout the entire learning journey, participants are guided to make (T)argeted Connections back to their roles and leadership challenges. Our participants clearly feel the value of our programs, one participant stating:
“The simulation was extremely engaging. It helped to apply the concepts we learned in real time. The best part was to 'wait and see' the impact our decisions made and the discussions that follow. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience."
Active engagement not only facilitates learning but also deepens the comprehension of its significance and application in the workplace. Business simulations are engaging, unforgettable, and extremely effective.
Shared Experiences
Leadership development programs can also fulfill another important need: shared experience. Since the 2020 pandemic, Microsoft researchers have found that remote work has decentralized people’s working habits, providing more flexibility for individuals but also disrupting team dynamics and making it more challenging for teams to build strong connections and work cohesively.
Yang et al. (2022) used the Difference-in-Differences method to compare changes between two groups: those who already worked remotely before the pandemic and those who moved to remote work as a result of it. By using this method, they were able to isolate any changes in behavior when comparing pre-pandemic and pandemic data around collaboration. Their findings indicated that the transition to remote work resulted in an observed decline in “cross-group ties” (collaboration across different teams or departments) and “bridging ties” (connections between different parts of the organization), which led to reduced access to new information and the siloing of groups.
Our programs emphasize how leaders connect not only in person but also in hybrid and virtual settings. The shared experience is created through teams working toward a set of goals within a fictitious organization, and they do this with peers they may not normally interact with. While they work to achieve their goals, teams naturally begin to share stories, debate, and even role-play situations that tie learning back to their jobs.
Here is what one participants had to say about this experience:
"Being grouped with other functional leaders allowed me to see problems from a different POV and definitely improved my ability to think in an Enterprise mindset. I enjoyed meeting leaders from other functional operations teams and collaborating on issues together. This training creates a team building environment that exemplifies what group training should accomplish open discussions and collaboration across the organization to meet a common goal. Thanks for the opportunity!"
Effective program design can help participants overcome geographical and organizational barriers. Beyond the valuable lessons from the business simulation itself, leaders gain insights from their teammates during this shared experience.
Bonus: Fun!
Business simulations are inherently fun! Participants tackle scenarios similar to their real-world roles, role-playing conversations they might have on the job and engaging in friendly competition against other teams. This motivates teams to push themselves, all within the safe environment provided by our expert facilitators.
This approach ensures that leaders have not only a motivating and engaging experience but also a memorable one, making it easier to transfer their learnings back to their jobs. And who doesn’t love bragging rights with their coworkers?!
Redefining Leadership Development
At Insight Experience, we aim to provide an experience far from the traditional lecture-based snoozefest. Our dynamic, customizable leadership development programs and business simulations offer an alternative to the conventional methods commonly used in leadership development.
Don't settle for your grandparents' leadership development program—embrace the future with Insight Experience. Contact us today to learn more and see how our innovative programs can transform your leadership skills.
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References
Deslauriers L., McCarty L. S., Miller K., Callaghan K., Kestin G. (2019). Measuring actual learning versus feeling of learning in response to being actively engaged in the classroom. In Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116 (39) (pp.19251-19257). National Academy of Sciences.
Yang, L., Holtz, D., Jaffe, S., Suri, S., Sinha, S., Weston, J., Joyce, C., Shah, N., Sherman, K., Hecht, B., & Teevan, J. (2022). The effects of remote work on collaboration among information workers. Nature Human Behaviour, 6 (1), 43–54.
