The Role of Simulations in Conquering Fear
Using teamwork and leadership simulations to build confidence
It impacts your future,
it comes from the past,
it dominates and owns your present.
Fear is a name that cannot be spoken.
Yet, it locks human potential in its grasp.
I am not talking about the type of fear you get from watching horror movies; you know, the standard popcorn and jump out your seat shows.
What I am talking about is a fear that dominates teams and organizations.
What do I mean?
Well, that fear is normally translated into passive-aggressive communication and conservative policy against making changes, in anything.
Fear of the future,
fear of change,
fear of what’s coming,
fear of the unknown;
This emotion is palpable; you can feel and see it. Executives and teams display it; you can see it in their decision-making and strategic plans: they are disconnected from what happening in the outside world. The world we exist in is literally undergoing massive changes: climate change, scientific, technical, biotechnical, robotic, societal changes, are just a few of the headwinds we are experiencing now.
And what are organizations doing to adapt to these changes? A two-day course on soft skills, an LMS workshop on, ChatGPT… You think I am kidding, but that is the reality. Sure, there are some outliers, some dudes who really get it, and they are working to fix their teams with skill sets to survive and adapt… but in general. Nope.
Like a rabbit fixed by the headlight of the oncoming car, it seems like everyone knows the theory of change that gets misattributed to Einstein, “you can’t expect different results by doing the same thing again and again”, but even if you up it by 2% every year, nada… it ain’t going to make a difference.
Learning to overcome fear in decision-making situations… is a skill! You can train to help teams and leaders overcome it, and build new skill sets.
How?
By using teamwork and leadership simulations with good coaches.
Here, teams undergo difficult scenarios that test and develop their capacity to solve problems, communicate and use their imagination, under pressure, and at speed. The results are developed quickly and almost immediately transferable to the workplace.
Why?
Because the simulation releases the hold of fear.
Again, why?
Because it is a simulation, you are playing; and through play, you get to rehearse what you would do in real life. Rehearsing, practicing under pressure, allows teams to build the protocols to deal with unknowns ASAP.
Again and again, we see teams start from literally zero ability to work as a team, and grow quickly; all because the simulation is, in itself, a coaching workflow: the 40+ challenges cannot be solved by individual behavior, they can only be solved by people communicating and collaborating collectively.
Cooperation is born from the desire to play and win.
You can’t learn these skills in a classroom, via a slide deck; that’s where you learn knowledge of things. But then, you have to go take those principles, and turn them into actions; actually honing them by doing them repeatedly… again and again.
That concept of practicing is what is alien in business training, and learning and development.
LMS systems simply cannot teach the soft skills of teamwork and leadership. They are just a more sophisticated version of a slide deck.
Here’s another thing:
Until you — that means YOU! — decide to do something about this through action, you are going to be stuck in the “fear of action” zone; and that, trust me, is not going to be a good place to get caught out in.
As the saying goes: if you stay still, you will get eaten for lunch.
Don’t be on someone’s menu.
Be action-oriented. It doesn’t matter if, in some cases, it’s wrong, because that’s how you learn. Then you pivot, and come back on a new course. Rinse-repeat.
When you take action, you control fear, you turn that energy into something positive and useful. Not only that, but you transform its insidious hold on you and your team into a new capacity to take on tough challenges. Self-belief replaces negative fear. Instead, what appears is positive fear; a fear that is positive because it allows you to measure the risk factor in taking on new and large objectives. You learn new protocols to overcome problems and issues without ignoring them or looking the other way.
When teams and leaders do this, they make magic.
And a magical world of experience is a much better one than the one of getting smaller and smaller every day, under the rule of fear.
I know where I want to be.
Do you?
Rock and roll.
DISCLAIMER: This article was written by a human.
