Performance Management Blog

Why is “Lost Dutchman” such a great team building exercise?
The Goal is to Mine as much Gold as WE Can

Why is “Lost Dutchman” such a great team building exercise? LOTS of reasons…

First, Active Involvement generates ownership involvement, and it is generally true that:

Nobody ever washes a rental car.

Thus, delivering a team building exercise that actively engages people in a learning event and that then provides them the opportunity to debrief the play and then discuss THEIR ideas for things that could be done differently is very powerful. They are much less likely to resist doing things that they thought about doing differently.

So, if you are looking to generate commitment to change and to have better alignment to shared missions and goals and a higher level of collaboration among work teams and departments, then it makes sense to use a business simulation to drive organizational improvement, right? And, we are not talking about some lightweight team bonding kind of activity that has little or no real connection to the workplace or that will have no measurable impact.

The Search for The Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine was first released back in 1993 (Press Release Here) and since that time, it has proven itself to be one of the very best team building exercises in the world. Unlike so many other “team building activities” out there that are fun and interesting but that do not link well to organizational development and real change, the Dutchman game focuses on measured results and rewards the tabletops for planning and executing actions connected to optimizing impacts.

 

The Goal is to Mine as Much Gold as WE Can

Tabletop teams can choose to gather information or collaborate with other teams and share resources and do the front-end work that leads to optimal outcomes. Or, they can choose to compete and work on their own to try to win. Collaboration between tabletops and sharing information and resources helps all the teams meet the Expedition Leader’s goal of, “Mining as much Gold as WE can!” (Would not more collaboration generate the best outcome in your organization?)

 

The design of the game is elegant and the behaviors that are generated are seen to reflect the actual operating cultures of the organization. The introduction, planning and play take less than two hours, leading to powerful and realistic debriefing discussions focused on actual issues and opportunities.

Game materials are sold at a one-time cost, with no required train-the-trainer or certification or annual licensing, making it a great package to incorporate into on-boarding kinds of events or for integration into leadership development or management training opportunities.

Plus, it is a really great exercise for events needing to get people talking about best practices or other kinds of approaches to optimize and implement organizational improvements.

Contact us if you would like more information. We have users of the simulation working on themes of strategy implementation, innovation and workplace creativity, selfless leadership and a wide variety of different kinds of developmental work.

Dutchman is but one of the truly amazing active experiential learning tools existing in the global training and development marketplace,

For the FUN of It!

Dr. Scott Simmerman is a designer of team building games and organization improvement tools.
Managing Partner of Performance Management Company since 1984, he is an experienced presenter and consultant who is trying to retire!! He now lives in Cuenca, Ecuador.

You can reach Scott at scott@squarewheels.com

Learn more about Scott at his LinkedIn site.


Here is a 2-minute overview of our new online, virtual team building game: https://youtu.be/6sFUOTjdUVg

The exercise has many links to the themes of trust (within and between teams) with a strong focus on trust in the leadership and on collaboration between the teams. This is THE world-class exercise anchored to these elements, based on three decades of client feedback.

logo for Lost Dutchman Virtual online edition

 

Square Wheels® is a registered trademark of Performance Management Company
The Search for The Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine is a trademark of Performance Management Company
Square Wheels images © Performance Management Company, 1993 – 2023. All rights reserved.

Dr. Scott Simmerman

Dr. Scott Simmerman is a designer of the amazing Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine team building game and the Square Wheels facilitation and engagement tools. Managing Partner of Performance Management Company since 1984, he is an experienced global presenter. -- You can reach Scott at scott@squarewheels.com and a detailed profile is here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottsimmerman/ -- Scott is the original designer of The Search for The Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine teambuilding game and the Square Wheels® images for organizational development.

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