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Simulating Experience
These
weaknesses are a serious handicap.
We must develop a new method that teaches managers what
experience teaches them but before they are tested on the job.
We must develop a much faster, less expensive and less risky
way for managers to learn. The
appropriate use of technology will help to achieve this objective. The computer has the potential to revolutionize training just
as it has revolutionized communications and production. But the computer has been around for a long time and it has
not significantly changed the way managers
learn or are taught. The
reason is that computer
simulations often do not teach managers how to manager.
Many of us
have used computer-based management simulations in our development
programs, but these simulations have two serious defects. First, they frequently leave people out.
They teach number skills but not people skills.
Getting
results through others is the essence of leadership and management.
If people are left out, the essence of leadership and
management is left out. Until
computer-based simulations teach managers how to lead and manager
people—how to select, develop, supervise and motivate people—they
will not have much impact on the way managers learn to manage.
The
second weakness of conventional computer-based management simulations
is that they are based on theory rather than practice.
They use theoretical models and algorithms and are not based on
real problems or real people or actual results.
The
danger of simulations that use theoretical models is that they will
teach managers what their designers imagine to be appropriate and will
leave them unprepared to cope with the real problems and opportunities
they must deal with on the job. Conventional
management simulations are often not a substitute for experience
because they do not teach managers what experience teaches them.
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Introduction
Experience
As A Teacher
Simulating
Experience
Accelerated
Experience
Method™
Accelerated
Experience
Programs™
"On-the-Job"
Learning
20/20
Hindsight
Computer-
Assisted
Learning
Conclusion |
