Case Studies

Learn how a trainer used Ecopoly with emerging leaders at a chemical company to help them prioritize organizational success over narrow departmental goals

Terry Maloney is an expert at both experiential and intercultural learning. A veteran trainer with more than 35 years of experience in learning and development, he has designed and lead training programs in no fewer than 30 different countries, often with METALOG Tools.

He finds that they consistently create experiences that lead to meaningful reflection and positive changes in workplace behavior.

With this background, Maloney was uniquely qualified to design a leadership development program for international talent at a major organization in the chemical industry. 

The client's goal was to help participants develop leadership competencies that aligned with the company's values on a global scale. Specifically, a key aim was to teach participants to see and cooperate across functional boundaries, and to strengthen their system thinking skills to help them prioritize enterprise-wide goals over their own localized interests. In other words -- to embed an enterprise mindset among its globally distributed emerging leaders.

To help participants in the program experience these concepts firsthand, Maloney chose Ecopoly.

"Ecopoly has been used with great success to simulate the dilemma of teams and business units needing to make decisions locally to gain a good result while still ensuring that the overall company result is maximized," he explains.

Experiencing the ripple effect of both silo thinking and system thinking

With Ecopoly, three teams must find a way to maximize their share of a scarce resource without depleting the resource entirely. Participants know the resource is limited, but typically fail to manage it carefully. Instead, they request too much over too many rounds of the game, inadvertently causing the system to stop regenerating the resource, and everyone loses access to it. 

Originally designed as a lesson in environmental sustainability, the tool illustrates how decisions about finite resources can have long-lasting implications for everyone, highlighting the importance of a holistic approach.

To reflect the reality of organizational decision making, Maloney adapted the original staging scenario to be a corporate setting instead, with teams (departments) competing for annual budget funds instead of a natural resource. (Ecopoly 2.0 now has three unique staging scenarios including one in a business environment).

In Maloney's adaptation, every year (a five-minute round in the game), three departments each submit a budget proposal for the upcoming year to corporate leadership. Their goal is to secure the highest possible level of funding without requesting so much that they deplete enterprise resources.

The departments are aware there is a system in place to regenerate funds that are not used -- namely that any funds not requested will double at the end of the year and be available for use the following year.

Their budget proposals are always approved by the comptroller as long as funds are available. If a department requests too much, however, the central budget is depleted and the entire organization goes bankrupt.

An additional twist is that each team must pay three budget units to HQ every year to cover enterprise-wide operating expenses.

"Teams usually approach the simulation with different strategies," Maloney explains. "Some teams apply for a high amount of budget early on while others apply very conservatively to ensure the three budget units they need to finance their own running costs. Between these two extremes, we observe a lot of experimentation to define a suitable strategy."

Learning in real time that cooperation outlasts competition

Once the teams play for five 'years,' they have the option of working together to coordinate their fiscal planning as a group. This occurs at an offsite that costs two budget units to attend.

"As they have to return two additional budget units to travel to this finance conference, some departments even decide to continue without aligning with the others," says Maloney. "In the meeting, it becomes clear what can be achieved through coming to an agreement concerning decision making. Only win-win strategies (in which all sides benefit) assure the survival of all."

"One of the 'Aha! moments we often experience is that participants encounter the limits of competition. While the benefits of competition are quite clear in organizations, experiencing the consequences of bankrupting an entire organization just by applying for too much individual budget makes a big impression and leads to deep reflection."

From Ecopoly to a new enterprise mindset

After the challenge, Maloney starts the reflection by asking participants about what drove their decisions during the simulation. He then connects the exercise to company values surrounding cooperation and teamwork by asking how the activity would have been different if the point was to prioritize 'cross-company collaboration.' He concludes by asking participants how they can apply the lessons to their own leadership roles in the company.

"Although the many variations of the 'prisoner's game' are quite well known, this simulation works in a reliable way to generate the reflection and learning around holistic thinking that is desired by the client. Over the last few years, it has been very well received by participants and company representatives alike and continues to be a cornerstone of leadership development."
 

About the trainer

Terry Maloney is a project partner at Movendo Consulting. He speciaiizes in the design and delivery of international leadership development programs.

Contact Maloney on LinkedIn.