Is it possible to win against competition with one hand tied?

The business game Mango Pills is a simulation of the operation of a manufacturing company with all the complexities of modern management in a tough competitive environment.

According to the metaphor of the game, the participants had to develop pharmaceuticals, receiving an order from the market - from pharmacy chains.

Each request goes to the sales department, from where it is sent to the warehouse, where the necessary calculations are made for the production department that develops new drugs. Drugs enter the development and research department, after which they are sent to pharmacy chains, which accept and pay for the ordered products.

The game was customized so that the participants went through the full production cycle of the drug. Pharmaceutical paraphernalia helped to immerse in the atmosphere – the participants worked in protective masks, goggles, caps and gloves, used tweezers while working and observed sterile conditions for the production and storage of drugs, as well as labeling and logistics requirements.

Two teams played. To form teams at the very beginning, two volunteers took on the roles of general directors of two enterprises (teams). They picked their leaders, assistants, teams of employees.
The game was played in four rounds of 15-25 minutes each. The first round turned out to be quite difficult for the participants: they had to understand the rules and navigate the possibilities and limitations.

All participants approached their roles extremely responsibly, the competition was real. It seems that everyone even forgot that this is just a game - the involvement was guaranteed! There were many requests from pharmacies - about 100 order cards.

Each team made a decision on what demand they were ready to cover. The order was determined by lottery.

Each team’s goal was to earn as much money as possible, and each looked for their own ways to win the competition.

At first, the teams scrutinized each competitor's every move, monitored each other's compliance with the rules, focusing on this even more than on improving their own processes. The fact is that there were fines for violations. It was possible to lose earnings for violation of safety regulations, storage or transportation conditions.

However, among the opportunities for success was employee training. Being carried away by other ways to get ahead of competitors, the participants did not immediately understand this - only at the end of the second round. Training allowed to optimize and accelerate processes. First one, then the second, the teams began to invest in improving production conditions and in training to increase the level of competencies of their employees.

An untrained employee is like working with one hand tied, moreover, with the left one. In the game, everything was like that literally! The lowest level of competence - you work only with your left hand, the next - with your right, the highest - with both hands. Managers had no right to work with their hands and dealt exclusively with coordination.

Discussing the game, the participants admitted to maximum immersion - in the process they lived through real emotions, real tension in a competitive environment.

They became so accustomed to their roles that sometimes they thought unconstructively: they did not immediately understand that it was possible to optimize processes, for example, they did not immediately transfer employees from oversaturated departments to those where more effort was required.

Important conclusions were drawn from the results: it is necessary to achieve a higher level of trust between teams and within teams, to strive to focus less on external factors and improve more from the inside.

The team that made important conclusions earlier and took them into account in its activities won.

Conclusions that the participants made during the facilitation after the game:
The result depends on the efforts of each function.

To do this, it is important to coordinate and synchronize all actions.
Every manager can become a leader.

Rising to a bird's eye view, you can see the bottlenecks of business processes.
It is important to broadcast goals and create a constructive dialogue. This helps to increase engagement in achieving results.

The participants found out that not every employee knows the KPIs of other departments, and this would be important in synchronizing efforts. The participants also understood how important it is not just to know about the existence of the goal, but also how the goal sounds, share it and influence its achievement - each in their own area!