There’s no bigger joy than a CXO’s …
…when s/he sees his/her team lift their game and PowerUP Brilliance™. That’s the magic of a culture-shaping innovation workshop. In just a few intense hours, we take a fresh look at aggressive KPIs, new standards of accountable care, lagging revenue targets, technical hurdles. It’s always a thrill when a smart team shifts from a victim-of-circumstances perspective to a take-charge, seize-opportunities and mobilise-support perspective. And when the CXO sees their true potential come alive — first in simulations and rehearsals, and then in real down-to-earth strategy execution.
Gameification
…makes adversity fun rather than frustrating. It demonstrates what’s possible when leaders PowerUP WILL – and unleash the passion, resilience, energy, engagement in their team, to breathe life into the other 4 Courage Activators – Purpose, Candor, Rigor and Risk.
With hands-on vivid experience, it equips leaders to face resource shortages, competitive pressures, exacting standards, regulatory hurdles. They learn to throw off the yoke of hierarchy traps, internal politics and rivalries and the bias against creativity. It replaces mental obstacles with creative possibility thinking.
We’ve run dozens of “gameified” courage-lifting practice drills for leaders – in Innovation Leadership, Lead from the Middle, Accountable Care and PowerUP High Performance Culture-Shaping workshops. Some of the hands-on learning games have complex profit algorithms and exacting QA requirements. Others are simple enough to produce a vivid AHA! in 10 minutes of fun. They get your team up and moving, active and engaged, talking and working together. To achieve quick wins – and transfer those gains to the real game of business, with real customers, real investors and real collaboration partners.
Years after the workshop, we still run into participants who recall exactly what they did when they faced inflection points, pressures and moments of truth in simulations — and how they used their insights to make better decisions when they had to PowerUP Brilliance in real teams doing real work. We hear how the PowerUP workshop was a turning point shaping a high-performance culture — or accelerating adoption of breakthrough innovations.
What’s the difference between a company picnic and gameified high-impact PowerUP learning?
Three things: (1) Preparation; (2) Pull-through; and (3) Stickiness.
Preparation starts in our very first conversation with the program sponsors about the ROI they expect as the team steps up to PowerUP Brilliance™. Preparation continues with each participant, so they come to the team event with a clear Purpose — to advance career, KPIs, bonus, skills, team connections — and with open Candour, to put real issues on the table and come away with real breakthrough solutions. The result of preparation is a team that comes together to “make-things-happen” rather than “wait-and-see” what happens.
Pull-through is forethought rather than an afterthought. Each participant comes away from the PowerUP Brilliance event with an initiative to orchestrate — applying new leadership skills to accomplish a specific upgrade, with a quick impact on KPIs like revenue, cost reduction, price realisation, innovation, alliance-building, regulatory approval. Each participant comes away with peer coaching responsibility – to hold other members of their team “on belay,” like a mountaineer holding fellow climbers in a safety harness as they re-shape or strengthen the corporate culture. The CXO comes away with a portfolio review and accountability structure in place, so leaders in the middle show progress on weekly, monthly and quarterly milestones.
Stickiness starts with laughter and high-impact edu-tainment and moves to a deeper level. Mind-flips lift the team out of business-as-usual and problem identification — into a can-do, take-charge, optimise-results perspective. Insights are personal — so participants see how they can own their power, recharge their emotional batteries, reach out and build support, turn naysaying and scepticism into “what-if” inquiry and generative problem-solving. It’s a once-in-a-career experience — that most participants refer to as a turning point in their growth as executives and in the success of their transformation innovation initiatives.
Spectator event — or participation in the sport
We just finished the 2014 Olympics. Some of us attended as spectators — with an investment that required little more than our Cable TV subscription or, if we are real devotees, an airfare, hotel and stadium admission. We felt the energy, had a thrill and got memories to share with our friends and pass down to our children.
But, to achieve challenging game-changing A-level innovation results, it isn’t enough to sit in the stands or cheer from the sidelines. Delivering top performance means that you, personally, have to handle the pressure, stay sharp in the spotlights, separate signal from noise and land firmly on the ice.
Ask any Olympian about their investment, preparation, pull-through, stickiness. They’ll tell you – it took more than just buying a ticket. Ask any Olympic coach. They’ll tell you – it took more than reading the book, listening to the inspirational speech, trying a few easy moves.
If what you are asking of your team is nothing more than showing up in the stands, waving a flag and being a spectator — there are many ways to PowerUP magic and make it memorable.
But, if what you are asking is a transformative awesome Olympic-level achievement — to make aggressive KPIs within reach and achievable — there’s no substitute for Preparation, Pull-through and Stickiness. Sound intriguing? Then we welcome your inquiry – and the opportunity to contribute to your success.
