As part of helping people visualize how they impact the business they work in, our Income/Outcome simulations all use little wooden figures to represent a company’s various job functions. Some stand on the Balance Sheet, for example if their labor goes into creating a Finished Goods Inventory for sale. Others stand on the Income Statement if they are part of the Fixed Costs of the company.
At the end of the workshop, we like people to understand where they themselves stand in the financial statements. We can lead a discussion about how everyone, absolutely everyone, impacts three crucial areas:
- Sales (price, volume, or both)
- Costs and expenses
- How much money is tied up in Assets
Participants say things like “You know that second person we hired into the Sales and Marketing area on the game board, to develop our reputation for Quality? That’s my real job!” The benefits that such insights bring are limitless, and touch on a huge range of business competencies including cost control, control of working capital, personal morale, respect for other departments, more rapid and accurate information flows, better decision-making… on and on.
So what do we call the little wooden people on the board, who help so much with the development of business acumen? AcuMen, of course. One AcuMan, lots of AcuMen. And we award Gold AcuMen to the winning team.