Actors do it. Musicians do it. Footballers do it too.
It is a fact that in every profession which relies on a high skill level for top performance, practice is seen as vital to success and that talent will only get you so far.
The value of practice and experience is so deeply ingrained in our minds that it drives nearly all of the choices we make in our daily lives, big or small.
Whether it is an electrician to wire your house or a hairdresser to cut your hair, you simply wouldn’t choose someone who has never done it before. That’s because we know that where there is an absence of practice, the results can be unpredictable or downright disastrous.
So why is it that, when it comes to business, we don’t place a higher value on practice?
We know that experience is a critical part of learning and rehearsal reduces the chances of failure. This is drilled into us from childhood.
However, when it comes preparing people to support high-stakes business decisions - particularly the managers and those on the front line who have arguably the biggest impact on commercial success – we frequently fail to give them the experience which will help them succeed.
This seems like a particularly strange approach to take when our people are confronted with change and we are asking them to think or do something differently. After all, there are very few people who can do something perfectly the first time they try.
Business simulations are a way of giving people practice and experience in a business context. They work by allowing people to learn the behaviours, knowledge and skills that businesses need by experiencing simulations of the business decisions they are likely to face. They are commonly used by many large organisations to support leadership and change initiatives
What’s more, according to research conducted with Training Journal, which we published this month, they are rated by L&D practitioners as one of the most effective forms of learning and one which delivers real business impact.
Yet interestingly, simulations are also an element of the learning mix about which over half of L&D practitioners have no knowledge and over half have never experienced.
As organisations are placing more pressure on L&D functions to improve the effectiveness of the programmes they design and deliver, it seems strange to ignore one of the few elements of the learning mix which can be relied upon to deliver business impact.
So here’s a challenge. If you are working in an L&D function where no-one has experience of business simulations, drop me a line and we can set a date to show you and your colleagues how practice can make perfect for your organisation.
