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The Agency Leadership Simulation™

The Agency Leadership Simulation™ is a highly interactive, computer-based, three and one-half day leadership simulation designed specifically for the marketing communications industry. ALS is an accelerated experience learning tool; participants gain three years of real agency leadership experience in a safe learning environment where successes are celebrated and mistakes are valuable lessons.

Although the ALS is an integral component of the Agency Leadership Program, it can be delivered as a stand-alone training program.

The ALS challenges you to lead, manage and improve the performance of Shele House, a GlobalComm agency in Perth, Australia. In collaboration with others on your team, you will make a series of decisions that will determine whether, and to what extent, Shele House is successful in a time of transition in the marketing communications industry. The decisions you face are those Managing Directors typically must make. They are representative of decisions that, directly or ultimately, affect the creativity, profitability and revenue growth of any agency.

How the Simulation Works
Each participant is assigned to a syndicate that together assumes the role of the Managing Director of Shele House. Each group begins managing its office under the same conditions, i.e., each syndicate with the same office history, accounts, staff, revenues, problems and opportunities.

The computer is used to keep track of your decisions, to generate the issues facing you, and to provide you with relevant feedback about the decisions you have made. Feedback will come from the staff, clients, your bosses and others. Feedback also is given in the form of financial information and performance factors.

The simulation sequentially generates written case materials that describe a situation and ask you to choose from a range of alternative actions. After reading the material, the team will discuss the situation with the goal of achieving a group consensus on the action to be taken. The consensus decision is then entered into the computer.

This discussion - the group evaluation of the situation, identification of the issues to be resolved, and the assessment of the consequences of alternative actions - is the heart of this exercise. The committed exchange of personal experiences, information and differing viewpoints among members of your syndicate is the stimulus from which you will derive the greatest learning.

Naturally, the different decisions that groups make about the situations they face will influence costs, revenues, staff productivity, business opportunities, and other factors affecting the office's overall performance. From the very beginning, differences between groups in their responses will lead each group down different paths. There are no "right" answers built into the simulation; however, some answers are more appropriate than others in achieving the goals you have set as managing director.

At several points during the simulation, syndicates come back together in plenary session to discuss key issues and to assist you in evaluating your decisions in a realistic and meaningful way.


Performance Evaluation
Your performance is evaluated on a number of factors. Certainly, financial performance - i.e., your team's ability to grow both revenues and profit - is an important part of his evaluation. Equally important, however, are the five leadership performance factors that constitute the definition of agency success. They are:

Factors like these may, in the long run, outweigh immediate financial performance in determining an office's growth and success.

Finally, the simulation keeps track of your time as a Managing Director. Your ability to have the time necessary to pursue the office's overriding strategic objectives will be affected by your decisions to involve yourself personally in additional agency or account issues. The more committed you become, the less time you have available to pursue your strategic objectives - a course that may, consequently, have a negative affect on the performance benchmarks.

The process of creating outstanding advertising for clients is a team process. The simulation will give you opportunities to see how well you work in a team both to share information and responsibility and to apply your own experience and leadership skills. No "right" or "wrong" answers or "correct financial results" are programmed into the simulation. The point of the simulation, therefore, is not to be the "winning" team. Your team's performance will derive from the objectives you set and how you decide to implement your strategies to reach those objectives. Your experience will be uniquely yours.

Leadership & Management Issues in the Agency Leadership Simulation™
The simulation challenges participants to act on approximately 300 decision points and opportunities. Among the wide variety of issues, participants must learn how to deal with:


For further information on The Agency Leadership Simulation, please contact Steve Foote.