Building A Broader Bench: Honing Business Acumen Through Simulation Play Business acumen is among the most essential competencies for future leaders to develop. Managers in every function and level of an organization need to know how their decisions impact bottom-line results. And that need for a big-picture viewpoint only grows as their roles do. TRI Corporation puts building business acumen at the core of its simulation programs, helping corporations around the globe strengthen their managerial bench and improve their bottom line. One such corporation was Praxair (now Linde plc, following a 2018 merger that created the world’s largest industrial gas company). Founded more than a century ago, Praxair had grown into a global leader, employing a large, multinational base of highly skilled engineers and scientists. Praxair’s leadership saw a need to bridge the gap between its technical and business sides and to develop the managerial potential of its engineering ranks for a more robust pipeline of future business leaders. The company turned to TRI Corporation to develop a training program on finance skill development as the core of its new executive education curriculum. TRI ultimately created four simulations for Praxair, each targeting a different level of experience as employees rose through the ranks, with activities tailored to that level and Praxair’s corporate goals. At each level, the program focused participants’ thinking around decision-making under uncertainty. Teams had to deal with time pressure, scarce resources, limited information, and opposing opinions within their ranks. With a bottom-line focus built into each simulation, the program flourished over a more-than-10-year relationship and played a contributing role in Praxair’s impressive long-term results.
The program: simulation play tailored to the company’s real-world operating culture Before the beginning of each simulation, participants were grouped into competitive, geographically diverse, cross-functional teams, each of which was charged with running a hypothetical enterprise. Participants were encouraged to take on roles outside their real-world functions to gain a different perspective on the workings of the business. Each team worked from a model spreadsheet to solve a particular challenge. In every round of simulation play, teams created a business forecast, interacting with faculty (who took on the roles of customers and suppliers) to gain critical information. Throughout the simulation, personal challenges were introduced tailored to individual participants’ critical development areas to help them progress their skills. The results: greater financial literary and a whole-enterprise perspective In every iteration of the program, Praxair’s future leaders came away from the experience better able to assess the risks and rewards of their decisions. They could integrate their decisions across business functions. And, they gained a better understanding of the impact those decisions had on every aspect of the enterprise, including profitability, cash flow and assets.