Managing for Impact

Shared Services

Continuous Improvement Process

HRD & Training Strategies for Organizational Impact

Chain Gang Simulation

Presenting for Action

Coaching for Results

Association

The Chain Gang Simulation is designed to increase the performance level of first-line managers and supervisors as well as the teams they manage.

This simulation is a manufacturing process in which teams produce weight-bearing paper chains. It focuses on the basics of effective first-line management; i.e., how to make the workplace support high-performing individuals and teams. Participants work in small groups throughout the day learning and applying specific management tools that support individual and group “breakthrough” experience, achieving profitability under constraints that originally seem impossible. More than 21,000 participants have used the Breakthrough Systems they learned in Chain Gang as a springboard for achieving outstanding results back on the job, saving organizations millions of dollars in improved performance.

1. Define the requirements for Breakthrough performance:
• Set clear expectations for quantity and quality of output.
• Provide simple tools of self-monitored performance feedback.
• Make sure resources (skills, tools, materials, information, authority) are adequate.
  
  
2. Practice methods that cause Breakthrough performance for different kinds of tasks:
• Routine tasks—repetitive tasks with well-known but demanding output requirements
• Projects—integrating diverse tasks with single, unique outputs
• Trouble-shooting tasks—dealing with uncertain demands and emergencies
  
  
3. Practice the skills of performance coaching:
• Encouragement—reinforcing desirable performance
• Advice—providing information and demonstrations to improve deficient skills
• Discipline—stopping undesirable behavior

Target Audience:

• First-line managers and supervisors in manufacturing or service industries;
• Project managers.

Key Concepts:

• Essentials for high-level performance:
1. Clear expectations concerning performance results
2. Feedback: reliable, continuous, self-monitored and informal information concerning how one’s performance compares with expectations
3. Control over the resources necessary to meet the expectations
• Balancing expectations and resources—setting and resetting performance goals
• Rules for giving encouragement—behavioral reinforcement
• Rules for giving advice—formative behavioral feedback
• Essentials for team work—goals, plans, roles, decisions and coaching among team members
• The Task-Grid – expectations and feedback systems for routine, project and trouble-shooting tasks

Key Skills:

• Group decision-making—consultative decision-making rather than consensus
• Setting team goals, basic cost analysis and profitability planning
• Task analysis and definition of performance roles and expectations
• Providing simple tools for self-monitored performance feedback
• Configuring resources to facilitate employee-initiated corrective action
• Coaching with behavioral reinforcement and advice giving

 Simulation Method:

• The participants work in teams (5-8 members)
• Each team goes through four rounds of performance, each round has 90 minutes of activity:

• Each team takes orders for their product and produce them to specifications by the end of the 5-minute performance round.
• Supervisory skills to perform routine, project, and trouble-shooting tasks are required.
• To achieve profitability, given the uncertainty of orders and the high standards for quality, the teams must get a critical mass of their members performing in Breakthrough systems.

Materials:

• Text: Daniels, William R. Breakthrough Performance: Managing for Speed & Flexibility. Mill Valley, CA.: ACT Publishing, 1995.
• Participant Workbook
• Class size can vary from 5 to more than 100 participants

In-house Certification is available for the Chain Gang Simulation. If you would like more information, please call American Consulting & Training, Inc. at 800/995-6651 or 415/446-4355 or Chin Teik Consulting Ltd at +852-9468-0428 and chin.teik@chinteik.com.