Understanding the power of gamification to enhance learning, American multinational corporation, Emerson Electric, were seeking to incorporate experiential business games into their annual leadership development program in Beijing. Emerson were looking to focus on appreciation of company leadership competencies, team bonding and problem-solving.
We produced a customised treasure-hunt based, The Discovery Challenge, to specifically match and reinforce these learning outcomes incorporating the seven leadership competencies required by all the senior leadership at Emerson.
In The Discovery Challenge, participating teams were allocated a Discovery Wheel, booklet, digital camera, map and a limited budget to move around the city. The booklet detailed instructions, timings and application of each leadership competency, as well as a list of twenty locations for teams to select which particular places they wanted to visit. Locations such as The Bird’s Nest, Water Cube and Forbidden City attractions which were further out or were more challenging and attracted more points.
On arrival at the location, teams used the Discovery Wheel to reveal the actual challenge. These ranged from finding trivia, taking innovative team photos or meeting with our event marshal to complete a team problem-solving task.
Teams completed as many locations in the time allowed, returned to the hotel on deadline to submit their answers and took part in a team debriefing. While our main facilitator led the back-to-work application and strategic references to the Emerson Leadership Competencies, event marshals tallied the scores and displayed the team photos.
Once the winners for Highest Team Score and Best Team Photos were announced, the final messages were reinforced and the team celebrations began.
