With the flux that 2020 has brought to our lives, turbulence is no longer something you prepare for but a reality you live in. Buzzwords like adaptability and agility are common parlance and change is the only constant. In this free-falling world, resources are scarce and swiftly-depleting, and businesses are hard-pressed for solutions to problems they have never faced or even visualized. Where do we go from here? Douglas Adams would propose 42 as the universal answer – I vote for simulations.
So what exactly are simulations? They are methods of training that create multiple hypothetical real-life situations and use changing variables within the business environment to predict behavioral patterns and responses to systemic stimuli. Too complex? Let’s break it down.
This tells you a little bit about what simulations are, but it doesn’t even begin to skim the surface of why they should be an integral part of every training program today. The true power of a simulation is in its ability to identify the business needs and pain points before they are encountered. Let’s take a look at how simulations can assist employees and entire organizations with navigating change and building agility.
The literary genius Lewis Carroll has this extremely layered scene in Alice through the Looking Glass where Alice (of Alice in Wonderland fame) is running full throttle with the Red Queen in the forest. As she whizzes by, she notices everything around her seems to be the same as it was before, and mentions this to the Red Queen. Alice evinces surprise at trying to get somewhere but ending up exactly where she started, unlike in her own country where she would have gotten somewhere else if she ran at this speed. In the Queen’s response lies a world of wisdom for businesses grappling with uncertainty today. “A slow sort of country! Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!” Make of that what you will.
– By Charulata Razdan, Manager – Instructional Design at MPS Interactive Systems
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