Tears, Tantrums and Triumphs: Experiential Learning Through Games

• In Event: TLC at APSA: Simulations, Skills, and the Bigger Picture: Thinking about How and Why We Use Simulations

Abstract

Research question

How, in the classroom, do you best capture the true dynamic of the strategy journey in complex and changing environments?

Hypothesis

The public image of a know-nothing consultant who enters organisations and offers little useful help has a basis in truth. Many consultants and strategy educators do not have a firm grasp of the realities of “doing strategy”. They fail to understand that problems of implementation are not individual failings but inherent to the academic teaching of strategy, including political strategy. They teach a rational approach to decision making based on carefully designed models crafted by intensive research. Others abandon any pretence at academic rigour and produce populist texts based on emotions and apparent first-hand knowledge without evidence.

Both approaches suffer from a reality gap as there is a need to maintain academic rigour while introducing students to the emotional roller coaster that is the strategy journey, while these approaches only do one or the other.

Having struggled for many years to address this it was decided to make a dramatic change in approach by introducing a dynamic strategic geo-political simulation with elements of both competition and co-operation.

The use of simulations is not in itself a new idea, though the intensity and the academic interaction is greater in this than in any others of my experience, which have tended to be either short or more intensely related to employability skills and not theory, this game develops both.

Methodology

In the department of Politics at the University of York, on the MPA/MA module Strategic Planning, a simulation based around a near future scenario where 5 teams representing international powers have to deal with dividing up the continent of Africa for development and/or exploitation purposes was introduced.

Teams are provided with details of their initial resources and over a period of 9 weeks they make a series of moves and develop and implement a strategy. Unusually for such a “game” this one allows cooperation as well as competition.

Each week of the game students are introduced to new strategic models and they are guided in their groups to apply them to the game. They learn to recognise the strengths of the models but also the weaknesses of them in a dynamic environment influenced by the behaviour of others.

Over the period of the game there are several events that affect the players and the game board, randomly assigned, and the students need to react to these while building up their assets. They negotiate both with the game masters and with other players, and they receive a final group mark after which they must negotiate with their fellow team members to receive a share (equal awards are forbidden by the rules). This way the students are introduced to a real impact of their game playing.

Data

Example student feedback:

“the simulation game triggered extreme enthusiasm”

“the simulation game helped us to realise how to Do not only Explain things”

“the game was run over one whole term, which helped to try new approaches and acknowledge the messy, emergent character of strategy”

“The module was very interactive providing opportunities for learning that a normal lecture and seminar would not do”

“I definitely enjoyed participating in 'the game' - …….. Also, I believe that by having practical sessions, it …. allowed me to understand what it is like to be a homo-strategicus.”

Contribution to Knowledge

The students are a highly diverse group, normally all continents except Australia (and Antarctica) are represented, and the involvement develops both academic skills. such as critique and synthesis, and employability skills including difficult to develop ones such as Resilience, Cultural Awareness and Adaptability.

Students have voted with their feet, attendance is over 95%, approval ratings are above 90% and many students have reported employer interest at interviews into the learning from the game.

For the 2019 offering of the game an innovation is a GTA whose only role is as a dedicated game master. They and a graduate will contribute to the presentation by Skype or pre-recorded video, which will also include footage of the game.

Key Sources:

Carter et Al. A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book About Studying Strategy

Chapman, Anxiety and defective decision making: an elaboration of the groupthink mode Management Decision, Vol: 44, Issue: 10

Collins Kevin Emerson, The Knowledge Embodiment Dichotomy, UCDL Review, 2014

Hand Len, Sanderson Peter, O'neill, Mike, Fostering deep and active learning through assessment , Accounting Education, Vol. 5

Mintzberg, Henry. Ahlstrand, Bruce W.; Lampel, Joseph, Strategy bites back : it is a lot more, and less, than you ever imagined ... /, 2008.

Author

• Jonathan Fanning, University of York