12. Match Your Simulation to Your Industry
Eliza Helweg-Larsen
Published Date
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Choosing the Best Business Acumen Simulation: Part 3 – Include a Mix of Learning Styles
Choosing the Best Business Acumen Simulation is our multi‑part guide to evaluating, selecting, and achieving meaningful results with business simulations. In this installment, we examine A Mix of Learning Styles — why integrating content with action reaches every learner and improves retention.
Supporting multiple learning styles helps all participants engage and succeed.
A business acumen program should serve as a foundation for other training and development. That means it must reach every learner—not just some.
Learning styles matter. Effective business simulations should address the full range:
- Auditory learners absorb spoken instructions and discussion.
- Visual learners respond to graphs, charts, and spatial layout.
- Textual learners need written explanations and reference points.
- Kinesthetic learners thrive on movement, manipulation, and hands-on experience.
Simulations that ignore even one of these styles create blind spots in comprehension. For example, without physical interaction, kinesthetic learners may struggle to engage—or worse, retain very little.
In a well-integrated simulation, players don’t just listen or read—they act. The Income|Outcome tabletop experience activates kinesthetic, spatial, auditory, and logical learning simultaneously. Our online version preserves this multidimensionality. Even with less movement, the simulation remains experiential: actions lead to consequences, and those consequences spark discussion.
When learning and playing are tightly integrated, participants form deeper mental models of how businesses function. They don’t just “learn about business”—they operate one.
Key Questions to Ask
- Does the simulation offer activities that engage all four learning styles?
- Is the gameplay integrated with learning, or are they separated?
- Do participants move between action and reflection in a meaningful cycle?
Where Things Go Wrong
Business acumen isn’t absorbed through lectures alone. It grows through participation, discussion, pattern recognition, and reflection. Integrated learning reaches more people—and helps them retain more of what matters.
Bottom Line: Simulations that support multiple learning styles provide a richer, more inclusive learning experience. Choose tools where learning happens through doing, thinking, and talking—not just listening.
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| Avoid: Closed decision-making Because… it will limit engagement and reduce retention. | Look for: Open decision-making Because… it engages learners — it’s a game they control. (Bonus: develops autonomy and accountability!) |
Coming Up Next: Player Types — Why catering to only one personality type can alienate half your team.
Choosing the Best Business Acumen Simulation is our comprehensive 17-part guide to evaluating, selecting, and achieving meaningful results with business simulations. In this installment, we weigh looking at industry vs. company dynamics—and why the broader models create better thinkers.
Choose a Simulation That Encourages Industry-Wide Thinking
A strong business simulation should help people see beyond their own roles and beyond the boundaries of one company. By framing decisions in terms of industry dynamics—competition, cost structure, and customer pressures—participants learn to think more broadly, compare different strategic paths, and prepare for challenges that evolve over time. This broader context strengthens critical thinking and makes the learning stick.
Broader Thinking Leads to Better Decisions—and Better Outcomes
When selecting a business simulation, it’s crucial to ensure that the dynamics reflect the key aspects of your industry. However, there’s a balance to strike between modeling industry realities and overfitting the simulation to the specifics of your company.
Think Big: Encouraging Industry-Wide Critical Thinking
Simulations that encompass a range of good strategies equip learners to understand and contribute to broader corporate strategy. Conversely, focusing on a single company-specific strategy may leave participants with a narrow view—and limit their support for decisions they didn’t help shape or fully understand.
A company-specific simulation tends to describe a known system and a prescribed solution based on past analysis. While this may help with short-term alignment, it restricts creative decision-making. As business problems evolve—or as learners move to different roles—the predetermined solution loses relevance and can even become a liability.
In fact, if a company-specific simulation misses the mark, participants are more likely to blame the simulation itself than reflect on their own decisions. This can lead to the mindset of “I’m a great manager; the game was bad” instead of “I have some things to think about.”
Why Industry-Based Models Work Better
A more generalized simulation, customized to reflect industry dynamics like typical cost structure, competition, and business pressures (including managing for cash flow and profit), offers much greater flexibility. These models avoid presenting a “right answer” and instead allow participants to explore a range of strategic directions—with success or failure depending on their decisions.
A winning game approach may not always mirror the decisions made by upper management, but it helps participants understand the issues behind those decisions. This fosters broader insight, promotes adaptability, and strengthens creative problem-solving.
Over-Tailoring Company-Specific Items
Game-style simulations will never completely model a real company—so don’t try. Over-modeling company-specific cost structures or clients risks undermining learning. If the game is too company-specific and participants perform poorly, they’re more likely to blame the game’s modeling than their own imperfect decisions, and therefore fail to learn from the experience.
Key Questions to Ask:
- Is the simulation appropriate for my industry?
- Does it encourage understanding of the strategic concerns and options within the industry?
By focusing on industry dynamics rather than overly specific company details, you create a learning experience that prepares participants to think critically, understand complex decisions, and adapt as conditions change.
The Bottom Line
Simulations that emphasize industry dynamics over company-specific details build flexible, adaptable thinkers. Participants walk away with tools for critical thinking, an understanding of competing strategies, and the ability to navigate future challenges more effectively.
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Avoid: Too Much Focus on Your Company Because… it can lock people into static thinking and prevent future flexibility. |
Look For: A Focus on Your Industry Because… it promotes critical thinking and industry-wide understanding. |
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