Simulations, Soccer, and Cities
Welcome to summer 2014! I'll be brief as you might be reading this on vacation (as I'm writing it on vacation!).
Using simulations to teach leadership competencies like
Strategic Thinking, Financial Acumen, and
Business Thinking in a full business context has been a staple of OSI's service offerings for over a decade now. OSI has helped produce a number of custom simulations including global hospitality and restaurant organizations, sports and fitness apparel manufacturers, domestic service providers, and paper and packaging companies. We typically organize simulation workshops in a 3-5 day format with 2 or 3 teams independently leading and managing a business over a strategic time period of five to seven years. Earlier this year, Starwood Hotels and Resorts challenged us to assist in presenting our newest hotel simulation,
Inovva, to an annual meeting in Orlando, FL of their select service property general managers. Collaborating with Dr. Matt Mayberry of Wholeworks Consulting, the project involved organizing
twenty-six teams of 7-12 GMs and Sales Directors from properties around the Americas to simultaneously lead a struggling property back to benchmark levels of financial performance, brand standards, employee engagement, and guest satisfaction scores. The logistics were daunting, but the week was a success and we now wish we had invited the Guinness organization to put us in the record books for most simultaneous simulations ever conducted in a one week period! Starwood described the week in this YouTube video (
click here) and you can experience the simulated brand in the Inovva Sizzle Reel (
click here).
This year also brought us the World Cup in Brazil and maybe the tipping point for soccer enthusiasm in the USA? Judging by the US television ratings (even with the US team being eliminated in the round of 16), we may have finally embraced "the beautiful game" like the rest of the world! Our friend, colleague, and Hudson coach, Winsor Jenkins, has written a book using soccer as an allegory for global business leadership:
The Collaborator - Discover Soccer as a Metaphor for Global Business Leadership. In his book, Winsor notes that soccer coaches (unlike American football coaches) are restricted in their ability to manage their teams minute to minute once the game has started. Soccer teams must be more self-directed, and coaching much more about preparation and transfer of competence. You can preview his book, and order copies from Winsor's website:
www.winsorjenkins.com.
Finally, this summer produced another OSI milestone: the City of Medford, Oregon became the first municipality to license the OSI Polaris
� competency model for use in integrating the city's talent management systems. The public sector in the form of U.S. agencies, states, and universities, has long recognized the value of Polaris
�, but this represents our first city license. Working with Wendi Brown and Carl Crown of Wendi Brown Creative, we'll be helping City of Medford customize and apply Polaris
� this fall.
Enjoy the rest of the summer and we'll see you in the fall!
