a business management game

Search from the Internet these days, and it would give you a long list of business and management books available that tells the reader how to run a profitable successful business. They delve in a variety of topics, from corporate policy to marketing management to value chains to competitive analysis to statistical performance.

But I’ve had my personal glimpse of how to run a successful business through a game.

The business management game was a learning tool in the Production Management subject in the MBA Program of Xavier University. It was to me, the most consuming sit-down strategy game I ever played in my life. It is not that I played so many strategy games, nor there were opportunities for it. But it was the most consuming nevertheless.

In the material provided, it said that the management game aims to provide the participants with the opportunity to apply their various functional skills as well as decision-making tools. In essence, we were 5 teams pitted against one another as hypothetical, one-product, durable consumer-goods companies competing within the same industry.

When the game started, I was reminded of the concept of the cash flow quadrant that was presented by Robert Kiyosaki. I’ve read an article about him and Donald Trump, and the game brought me to think of the many ways I should approach the game – as the manager of the company; as the self-employed consultant of the company; as the business owner and one of the stockholders; or as an investor in the company that earns a passive income from its operations. In that way, I would know how my cash comes from the business in the management game.

It turns out, because of a cruel twist of a funny elimination method in my group, I was elected Chief Executive Officer of the company. I was afraid and not excited to act and take the responsibility of being the CEO of our group. But looking back now, I knew that the lessons I have learned from the game came from the fact that I was group CEO, come zero sales or stock-outs.

In my group, we were six in all. Unlike other groupings in the game, we did not become a business entity because we were friends or we picked each other out from the students in the classroom. Our group came to be because we were the ones without a group. Almost everyone in the group had been absent during the first day of class, when it was announced that there will be groups for the business game. And since we missed the announcement day, we just have to form an alliance with those that were renegades in the class.

Yet even with that fact, we six in the group started to meld as the game started. Because of the circumstance that brought us together, we started to believe and depend on each other. Deep in all of us six, we all wanted the group to understand - and play the game well.

We threw inspiring titles and roles all around – Chief Operating Officer, Corporate Secretary, Chief Finance Officer, Chief Administrative Officer, Chief Marketing Officer.

The basic point I learned from the game is this: that a great business needs a clear mission, an inspiring and impressive leadership, a competent team of managers who work well together, an excellent cash flow and financing, a clear and effective sales and marketing communications, a production systems that work efficiently, and most of all, a great product.

But I guess the operative word for our group is this: system. I looked at my group mates and game partners and I believe that they are all great individuals, with a pack of experience and stock knowledge and varying levels of confidence each one brings into the game. Yet there was no system to our game. At most there was fear of spending too much and losing cash, and at worst there was the "bahala na" attitude because of the thought that it was just a game.

I honestly found myself exasperated with the game. A stickler for systems, I did not like the fact that there was no information available, or deliberately kept from the players. I do not know, see nor have the chance to gauge my product against the other group’s, I cannot see the marketing efforts translated to advertising and promotions, I cannot have access to data and information that will help me study my group’s standing in the game. And of course, there was no system.

The game gave me the taste of how it was to be CEO. I have read somewhere that the difference between the businessman and the CEO is that the businessman is the person who builds great race cars and a CEO is like the driver of the race car. If you have a great race car driver but a poorly built race car, the CEO will lose every race.

My group met regularly to prepare for the game. We goaded each other to read, we were our own cheering squad. The other groups boasted of their own resident CPAs and engineers. We had no professionals like that in the group. Except for one member who is a manager of a nation-wide systematized business, we in the group were just a motley crew of business starters that were committed to finish the game.

I personally prepared templates for our decisions in the game, especially the ledgers to keep track of account balances. I plotted out expenses in a table, as well as sales or non-sales, as the case may be. I was trying to get trends, forcing myself to make a semblance of order in our business. I was thinking like a surfer, looking for a wave so I can ride it, and close a quarter with a good sales figure and make my group happy. But I could not find one wave.

I realized that it all boiled down to one thing: decisions. As the group faced a rocky start, everyone was discouraged and lost focus. We tried to anchor on the choices and judgment of one member. If it did not work, we asked another member to make the assessment and the choice for the next period. If the majority approved it, I give the go signal; yet oftentimes in the game, some members do not want to make decisions for the fear of mistakes. I challenged them, offering to buy them dinner if we make it good. Yet I knew that at the end the decisions have to be made and these decisions will end with me.

We did not end the game at the lead of the class. But though it was a lost case, I think I did not lose the lessons, and that is very important for me. And though we never made it to dinner, I think everyone has learned to respect and appreciate each other in the group. And to realize that it’s just all in the game.