Leadership Exercises

The Search for The Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine

Our team building exercises position the "expedition leader" to model a variety of effective behaviors in the attempt to engage, guide, motivate, manage and coach the participants within the exercise. We want congruence insofar as "Leader" and we do not want to create mistrust or an adversarial situation as is common in a number of other simulations.

In The Search for The Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine, for example, the specific defined role of the Expedition Leader is, "To help teams be successful." One of the paradoxes common to play are that very few teams or team members ever ask the Expedition Leader for any help or advice (it is one of the debriefing points!). Our other exercises are designed in much the same way, with the benefit of being able to include this message of support in the debriefings.

There are many affiliates in our user network who have developed multiple-day training programs using Dutchman as a main emphasis. They use the program as the kickoff event and then continually link back to the game metaphors over the course of days or use some of the behaviors generated with the exercise as a main theme for leadership development. We can provide contacts to our leadership development users if those are of interest.

Many of our owners employ the games to teach or confirm the personality inventory tools such as DiSC, MBTI, HBDI, LIFO and others since these exercises generate a variety of behaviors that can be used to confirm inventory results. This also adds specific interest and application to these tools and can expand what would be a half-day lecture into a full-day interactive and fun learning event.

Square Wheels® Game "The Collaboration Journey"

Our new Square Wheels Game, "The Collaboration Journey," is a 90-minute exercise that allows for strategic planning and decision-making links along with themes of collaboration and communications. Each person is individually accountable for managing a wagon but the group results depend on the level of overall collaboration. Our other programs are generally designed for 3.5 hours of play and debriefing. Many of the recent training programs I've delivered have been along the lines of "manager as motivator and facilitator."

Best managers are very good at communicating needs and involving and engaging people in the organization's key initiatives. The Square Wheels tools are excellent either as a full or multi-day program theme or as "spot color" to help illuminate a specific issue.