At the 2017 Training Conference I led a session on Developing Leadership Awareness Through Experiential Learning, in which I included a brief case study that highlighted using simulations as an experiential learning activity. After the session, I was asked what other activities might be used within an experiential learning laboratory environment.

Part I of this blog series took a deeper dive into what is required to make a learning program experiential. With that framework in mind, let’s explore some of additional learning activities that can be used within an experiential leadership development program.

Role-play

• Create a realistic scenario participants might encounter as a leader

• Identify roles on a team

• Rotate roles within the scenario to experience looking at the situation from different points of view

• Role Play Experiences- Battlefield for strategy or A Day in the Life of a CEO

Problem-based project

• Identify a problem/challenge within the organization

• Individuals can bring their own functional problem/challenge as ideas and the teams can vote on which problem to solve

• Mix teams up by functional background to help look at the solution from different points of view

• Allow the groups to present the challenge they worked on and the proposed solution

• Allow the groups to select the best solution

• Perhaps have the groups present their findings to Senior Functional leads

Case study – leaderless discussion

• Pick a case study that is relevant to the group

• Divide the case study up amongst the team

• Individuals share what they took from their portion of the case study

• Hold a brainstorming session to identify the questions that senior leaders should be asking about the information presented in the case study

• Keep it leaderless to see who emerges as leaders and how all participants can be leaders in one way or another when working collaboratively

• Real-time case study

• Works best if the program is extended over a longer period of time

• Groups observe and discuss how their company or an external company is handling:

Or even performing on a quarterly basis

• Recommendations can be made as to how they may have approached things differently

• Job Rotation

• Identify what functions the participants should rotate through

• Allows for cross functional understanding of the organization

• May require a longer timeline to complete a full rotation

• Growth

• A specific problem

• Change the rules

• Put them in teams (collaboration)

Gamification

• Shorter in duration than simulations

• Works great for repetitive behaviors or actions

• Works well for addressing a specific scenario

• Caution: don’t make it too much like a video game

• Keep it relevant to their current or future roles

• Board Games

• Works well for shorter duration programs

• Business board games

• Don’t rule out games you know and love for non-business objectives

• Imagine playing the game Risk as a team competing against other teams to work on strategic thinking skills

• Make sure to tie game lessons back to their real-world roles

Simulations

• Business Simulations: strategy, business acumen, financial acumen

• Functional Based Simulations: project management, operations

• Task-based simulations

The great thing about experiential learning activities is that they allow for learning by doing, teaching, and mentoring others in your group, and using facilitators as guides in a classroom setting to tie in relevancy. All aspects of the 70-20-10 model for learning are represented in experiential learning programs. Remember, any of these activities should be conducted in a safe environment to allow experimentation. We are developing leaders, we are not in a selection process.

If you’d like to talk further about designing your leadership program, please reach out to me at [email protected]

Stay tuned for our next blog on using off-the-shelf simulations versus custom simulations.