If at first you fail as a boss, hit 'reset'

Sorry, Lisa, I really didn't mean for it to end that way.

I didn't want you to quit. My goal was to get you to improve your performance as a sales rep.

Instead, I pushed you out the company door by not realizing what you really needed from me as your manager.

It was a sobering moment. But, luckily, I had the chance to fix my first failure as a manager by double-clicking an icon on my desktop -- and starting the simulation over.

The simulation, called The Manager's Workshop, was a mandatory component of my organizational behaviour class -- a core business course about how organizations work, how people interact with each other in corporate settings, and how bottom-line performance can be improved by the effective management of human resources.

Seemed easy enough. But, unfortunately, I first managed the fictitious Lisa as I would have liked to have been managed.

After she quit, I realized that what I really needed to do was put myself in her shoes and constantly make sure I was thinking about what Lisa would want, not what I would want.

I got it. By the end of my second effort at the simulation, her sales improved substantially -- and I became a better manager, as I successfully applied the lessons I learned with Lisa to other employees in the program.

This exercise shouldn't be limited to MBA programs. There are video games that simulate the creation and operation of a city, or teach kids how to operate a lemonade stand. Companies use flight simulators and stock-market programs to train employees before putting them into real-world situations.

So a company might want to think about training its managers to become better at their jobs with the people they oversee in much the same fashion.

Unfortunately, few do. According to my professor, many company executives wrongly believe managing people is merely "intuitional" and are skeptical about spending money on such software. In fact, he said he wasn't aware of any companies that use such simulations.

But the great thing about simulators is that, if you don't succeed, you get to try again. Try, in fact, until you get it right.

And to get there, you are forced to alter your game plan and look at situations from perspectives you might not have otherwise thought of -- one of the very important things that can make you become a better leader.

Perhaps if more companies required managers -- regardless of their formal or informal business training -- to work through these virtual management exercises, more executives would realize that listening to employees' needs, adjusting communication methods and examining a scenario from another perspective can have a real impact on performance.

That's certainly the lesson I learned from managing Lisa.

The Manager's Workshop, created in the mid-1990s by University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business professor Randall Dunham, is used by numerous business schools across North America.

Here's how it works: Users manage the sales staff at Omega Pharmaceutical Corp., a fictitious, medium-sized firm specializing in obstetric drugs.

I began with Lisa, a recent hire and straight-A science grad from a U.S. school.

According to her personnel file, she showed great promise in her interview but wasn't performing well out in the field.

My task: to improve her performance.

At each meeting with Lisa, I was offered a series of options, such as: ask her how well she thinks she has been doing; ask her if she was unprepared; point out the importance of building inventory levels; ask if she is satisfied with her sales levels; and offer to help her build sales.

Each choice had a predetermined outcome based on Lisa's personality type.

By our third meeting, Lisa was visibly upset by her poor sales. I responded by explaining that building a relationship with customers is a time-consuming process and it might take a while to reach her quota.

Bad move. That's when it all came undone.

"I give up . . . you offered encouragement but you didn't offer the support that I needed the most . . . what I really needed was specific assistance in becoming a better rep," Lisa admonished.

"I've left my letter of resignation with the personnel office."

Ouch. I didn't think she would quit. My thought process, it seems, was completely wrong.

I didn't fully listen to Lisa. I managed according to what I thought would be the right course of action but didn't pick up on her hints about what would have been the more appropriate solution for her.

I did what I would have wanted a boss to do with me, not what Lisa needed.

And what Lisa needed was coaching on her sales tactics, I concluded. She was brash with secretaries and, as a result, had a difficult time getting appointments with doctors, the people who prescribe Omega's drugs.

So I went back to the simulation board and began again. This time, I offered to help her build her sales out in the field, worked on her interaction with secretaries, and, lo and behold, Lisa's performance improved.

"Nicely done," the program concluded. Whew.

According to in-class theory, were this a real-world situation, helping Lisa to improve her sales would not only improve the company's performance but would also likely improve her morale and my workplace satisfaction, too.

That has the potential to spread through the rest of the organization and further improve financial performance. After all, happy employees are productive employees.

Too bad it was only a simulation.

Richard Bloom is a former Report on Business writer who has enrolled in York University's Schulich School of Business to obtain an MBA.

He writes regularly on the career lessons he is taking away from the classroom.