Gaining Appreciation Through Management Simulation
While sitting in class, it is difficult to grasp the complexities of what business
management truly entails. With all the different strategies, concepts, and theories, it is
challenging to choose how and which tactic to apply for different stages of management. The
organizational change simulation put many of these ideas we learned in class into a real-life
corporate situation. After two runs, we figured out what to do and what not to do, and learned a
wide variety of important lessons.
When we first tried the stimulation, our goal to get everyone aware and supporting us as
soon as possible. However, the way we attempted this did not work as planned. We tried to
“Walk the Talk” and “Hold Town Hall Meetings” during the mobilize phase. This did not work
because we had not established our credibility yet. Upon realizing this, we built our credibility
and started to gain more support. Later, we tried to confront the resistor. This did not work well
for us and hurt our credibility. As we continued the simulation into the movement phase, we
learned that conducting private interviews and clarifying organizational values worked well.
Telling a success story, conducting private interviews, and clarifying organizational values
helped take employees to the awareness and trial stages. In 82 weeks, we had all of our
employees adapted. After the first time we went through it, we realized there are many different
strategies that can be approached to better involve employees and learned valuable lessons.
This made our second run much more successful. Our main strategy this time was to
establish credibility and strengthen personal relationships. We started with this because we
realized it is important to establish credibility and strengthen the company network in the
every single employee. We also clarified our organizational goals, which helped bring many
employees from the trial to the adoption stage. We ensured not to hold town hall meetings or
send out e-mailed when our credibility was not well established, since this did not work during
the first run. We learned to maintain creditability, continue to strengthen the company network,
clarify goals, and send out posted progress reports during the movement and sustain phases.
Practicing all of these strategies resulted in 16 employees reaching the adoption stage in only 58
weeks.
After learning what to do and what not to do throughout both simulations, it helped us
understand broader concepts of management. We learned that if we confront resisters, walk the
talk, or hold a town hall meeting before many of the members are aware, we will not only lose
creditability but we will also lose valuable time. Employees will be more inclined to listen to a
manager who has had much success (success stories) and has worked hard to establish
relationships with them (conducting private interviews). For us, the most impactful technique
was to clarify organizational values and goals. Using this helped us move 8 employees to their
next stages. During the debriefing in class, we realized that the conclusions we made from our
experience were accurate and effective.
The major thing that surprised us was the importance of credibility and communication.
We thought that employees always listened to their managers because they feared losing their
jobs if they did not meet acceptable standards. We also thought that communication was not as
important as completing work and meeting deadlines. However, from the simulation we learned
communication has definitely changed; both of these concepts need much more attention than we
figured was necessary.
In conclusion, the simulation helped us learn what to do and what not to, while helping us
develop a broader understanding of managerial concepts through our applications of various
strategies. We learned that we should do things like tell success stories and establish personal
relationships through interviews. On the other hand, we learned not to confront resistors, hold
town hall meetings, and send out emails with low credibility. Conceptually, we learned many
important things about the business world: the importance of employee relationships, credibility,
communication and showing employees the progress of their performances. From this, we were
able to complete the simulation 24 weeks faster than our first attempt. The simulations helped us
appreciate these overarching messages and furthered our understanding of how a good manager
acts. Learning about the importance of credibility and communication are the two most useful
ideas we took away from this enjoyable, but challenging, exercise. Overall, the stimulation was a
great exercise to show us how important strong business management knowledge is and helped
