As a Team Leader, It is your responsibility to manage performance while also delivering organizational objectives. This simulation will present you with a pressing problem and the journey that you take to solve that is up to your choosing.
The simulation is an experiment to see how people respond to a situation.
Make the kind of choices you would make in real life.
Finally, thank you for participating.
Let's [[begin->The Brief]].You are a team leader for a 10 member strong team. You have to deliver an expected growth rate by the turn of the year.
You have a mix of senior team members and freshers. There are 3 senior members, who have worked at your org for more than 5 years. You have 3 members, who have worked for around 3 years. And 4 members in your team are freshers.
The organization wants to achieve a growth rate of 10% by the end of the year.
The situation at hand: Ryan, a senior team member, with over 6 years of experience at the organization has started to underperform.
You have to find a way to overcome the problem by making choices through this simulation.
At the end of the simulation, you will be provided with a status report on your team and your organization.
With the situation explained, let's proceed to meeting the team.
[[Talk to your team about maintaining performance to deliver objectives?->Meeting with the Team]] You address the team. Tell them that it's important to deliver the objectives. Do you notice that they are looking for some encouragement?
What do you do?
[[Talk to them about the incentives?->The Incentives and Bonuses]]
[[Look for updates from each team member? ->The Individual Updates]]You wrap up the meeting. And ask Ryan to have a coffee with you. On the way to get the coffee. You ask him, if there is something bothering him.
He says that there is nothing like that and that he has just been exhausted the last week or so.
What do you do?
[[Ask him why he's exhausted? ->The Empath]]
[[Give him a couple of paid-days off? ->The Understanding Lead]]
[[Tell him to start improving performance.->The Objective one]] You speak of the top performers getting 2 extra weeks of paid holidays.
And point to the increment in salary as a part of year-end-review of performance.
You notice that everyone's excited, except for Ryan.
What do you do?
[[Ask Ryan, Whats up? ->Whats up Ryan?]]
[[Check-in with your boss? ->Meeting the Data Cruncher]]
[[Check-in with Ryan separtely? ->Ryan? Are you Okay?]]All your team members point to challenges and ways in which they require help.
Ryan, however, says everything is fine.
[[Ask Ryan, Whats up?->Whats up Ryan?]]
[[Check-in with your boss? ->Meeting the Data Cruncher]]
[[Talk to Ryan separately? ->Ryan? Are you Okay?]]You meet your boss at his office.
You notice the revenue graphs plastered everywhere.
Your boss greets you and starts going over the numbers and the output you should be achieving to support the projected growth.
He also reminds you of the bonuses that are in store for you when you achieve the projected growth.
You talk a little more about the growth and projections.
Proceed to [[catching up with your team.->Catching up with your team]]You ask Ryan to speak up. He says that there is nothing wrong and that he is just having an off day. Taking a look at the monthly report, you notice that he is underperformed.
What do you do?
[[Do you tell Ryan to improve his output?->The Objective one]]
[[Do you talk to Ryan separately? ->Ryan? Are you Okay?]]
[[Do you leave things be for now to go check-in with your boss? ->Meeting the Data Cruncher]]You confront Ryan about his lethargy. You tell him that he has been underperforming and as a senior member, he should pull his weight more.
Ryan says he will start improving.
Proceed to the [[Check-in with the boss. ->Meeting the Data Cruncher]]He starts to open up because of having worked with you for more than 5 years. He says that he is lacking motivation at work because he is burnout by the repetitive nature of the work.
He says that there is nothing fun at work and it is starting to become like clockwork.
With Ryan being a valued member of the team, you don't want to lose his experience and the balance he brings to the team.
What do you decide to do?
[[Find creative solutions within the team? ->The Proactive Doer]]
[[Talk to your boss about workplace culture? ->Meeting the Boss]]As soon as you find out that he is exhausted. You decide to tell Ryan to take the next few days off and come back to work refreshed.
He thanks you.
[[You proceed to go meet with the boss.->Meeting the Data Cruncher]]You bring your team together to explore their issues and problems.
You are made aware that what Ryan feels is what your team also feels. That there is a lot of monotony around the work, which has led to people feeling burnt out by the work leading to an increase in stress.
Having listened to the concerns, You can choose to:
[[Organize a weekend trip for your team to improve morale->The Temporary Morale Outcome]]
[[Revamp organizational culture by having a meeting with your boss->Meeting the Boss]]You talk to the boss about your findings. You realize that there is some resistance from your boss concerning changing culture.
However, you press on indicating that the long-term benefits outweigh the short-term concerns he might have.
You also propose the utilization of inter-departmental brainstorming sessions and an organizational hotline to ensure there is more transparency.
Additionally, you propose that the two of you meet more frequently as a part of a "Coffee with Boss" session every month.
He agrees to integrate some changes in the coming months.
Proceed to [[Balanced Outcome->Balanced Outcome]].You go over the reports and notice that not only Ryan but other members of your team are not performing up to the required standard.
You quickly organize a meeting to understand the reason behind it.
You are informed that there is a general lack of work-life balance.
However, you can't bring sweeping changes to the work culture at the moment and you have also promised your boss that you will deliver the organizational objectives.
You have two choices:
[[Propose Overtime->The Overtime Result]]
[[Organize a weekend trip with your team to boost morale. ->The Temporary Morale Outcome]]With your employees doing overtime, you were able to deliver a growth rate of 10% on a projected 8% outcome.
However, Ryan and two other senior employees have quit with the overall attrition rate increasing as well.
You are team does have a strong core of young talent, however, work needs to be done to determine whether you can keep a hold of that talent or not.
You were also handsomely rewarded for your role in the growth of the company.
Proceed to <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/167kA37zNJD2EojjKVY-LggVHR_xAzik2lVZveycq2Gs/edit">Reflection</a>You were able to improve the performance of some of your team members in the short term.
However, Ryan decided to hand in his papers and resign due to unaddressed issues that hampered his performance.
The organization achieved a growth of 6% on a projected outcome of 8%.
However, more of your team members are starting to show a drop in performance.
Proceed to <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/17IjeoJu1NwOCzc6_IP-mSxKXmon0G5HUo389O2DliJM/edit">Reflection</a>Due to your intervention, your employees are far happier.
The improvement in culture resulted in the organization reaching an annual growth of 5% on a projected 8%, but the attrition rate was greatly reduced.
You also notice the improvement in performance in your team and especially in Ryan.
Proceed to <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1xGkC7FhWT36n8hnYUMTpIiYlCHFvKFzyWxEJUYH3tRE/edit">Reflection</a>