Climb to the top: the team of New Products Group tried their hand at the business simulation “Everest”
How to conquer the highest point of the planet – Everest – in just 3 conventional weeks? The answer to this question is already known to the employees of New Products Group. After all, they conquered a height of 8 848 meters thanks to the business simulation “The conquest of Everest” from Ascendis, which took place on the territory of UNIT City.
“Everest” symbolizes the ambitious goals of any business. The inspirer of this game is John Paver, a former mountaineer, who at one time also climbed Jomolungma, and now he motivates corporate teams around the world to overcome intellectual peaks.
At the beginning of the event, company representatives were divided into 8 teams. Among them there were “Invincible Stalkers”, “NON STOP Power”, “Snow Leopard”, “Victory.6”, “NON STOP Sunrise”, “Gang”, “Victory.8”, as well as “Norgay”, the team named in honor of Tenzing Norgay, a Nepalese mountaineer, who was one of the two people who first conquered Everest in 1953.
The task of the game was to climb to the highest point of the Earth within 21 days, go through 37 points of the route shown on a special map, and go down. And also, to stay on the mountain for as many days as possible. After all, for each such day, the team received a prize pebble and play money from John Paver.
To pass this difficult road, each team had to develop its own strategy. Think about the optimal route and allocate resources efficiently: take enough food and water, but do not overload the backpacks. To buy compasses and tents to avoid inclement weather and deadly avalanches. To exchange resources with other teams. And these fateful decisions were influenced by team members all together.
Each group had a start-up capital of $3,200. A part of the money, if desired, could be spent on professional guides. And also, on the tips of Nawang, an experienced “snow tiger”, who was the leader of the Everest expedition in 1965.
When they began to analyze the summaries and results, they saw the following:
The Norgay team was the first to reach the top of the mountain.
The Gang team earned a conventional 135 thousand dollars!
The teams Snow Leopard and Victory-8 received 100 thousand dollars each.
The NON STOP Power team received 50 thousand dollars.
And the Invincible Stalkers team, who stayed at the top for the longest time – for 9 days and earned the most of virtual money, unfortunately, could not go back down to the camp.
In general, half of the teams “remained alive”, i.e., reached the finish line.
But the most interesting thing was when they started to analyze the game and the behavior of the teams. It turned out that in the entire history of the game (and more than 5 thousand people have passed through it only in Ascendis), there were only two teams that did not lose a single player because they united their efforts and resources. They did not compete with each other but shared information, water and provisions, insured each other during bad weather, and therefore they won. “This game teaches that maximum cooperation between teams is required. After all, the company achieves the best results only when all divisions join forces”, said Yuriy Chernyk, Human resources manager of New Products Group.
Yuri Bykoriz, CEO of New Products Group, said that he also played in Everest 10 years ago. His team lost, but it helped to draw fruitful conclusions for the future. He emphasized that it is very important to avoid internal competition at work, as well as to analyze your “wins” and “losses” in order to do even better next time. “We are growing as a company, becoming even more visible on the market. But we are primarily a company of people”, he concluded.
Analyzing the mistakes, the Invincible Stalkers team admitted that they were too focused on staying on the top of the mountain and making as much “money” as possible. “We were determined to climb to the top, step by step, but we did not calculate the resources enough and we did not have enough of them to go down”, shared the representative of the team, Oleg Polishchuk, National Sales Manager (West District) of the New Products Group.
Even a member of the Gang team that “earned” the most “money” admitted that their team made mistakes. However, they corrected them in time. “There were bottlenecks in our strategy: we did not have enough time to calculate the plan, we took too many tents and compasses, but not enough water. However, our ascent to Everest showed that we managed to overcome all obstacles”, emphasized Nazar Novoselskiy, National Manager of the Sales Development and Trade Marketing of New Products Group.
On the other hand, the Snow Leopard team, which was also among the leaders, noted that they were greatly helped by the fact that they divided the responsibilities among themselves. “Our strategy was to make each player responsible for their sector of work. Someone took care of product stocks, someone monitored the weather”, explained Oleksandr Shust, Group Manager Logistics National Chains of New Products Group.
The participants of the Norgay team said that good human relations in the team helped them to reach the top first. “We chose the motto – ‘preserve our human nature’. After all, despite the fact that it is a game when a person is faced with difficulties, he/she always shows their features”, noted Olena Selutina, Communications Director of New Products Group.
Polina Toropova, Training and development manager of New Products Group, added that the company had long planned to hold “Everest” among employees, so that employees could learn something new and, perhaps, even show themselves in a new way: “Everyone had the opportunity to show their character in this game”.
Oleksandr Vyshnevskyi, a representative of Ascendis company, summarized that the participants who did not achieve the best result can take away the most valuable knowledge: “Teams that “die” first usually do the best work on errors. Therefore, in the end, everyone should analyze: “How did I show myself in the game?” and “How do I show myself in teamwork in the company?””.
