Can you make better leaders of doctors, midwives and nurses, by having them take on the roles of a project manager in an IT company? Sure you can, according to Region Midtjylland. Here our leadership simulation Playmakers™ is a part of the mandatory education for all new specialists in the healthcare system.
The participants learn what it means to be a leader, what kind of dilemmas leaders face and which options they have
“We tone down the project management part of the game and focus on general and person leadership”, explains Mette Vestergaard, who is organisational consultant in Region Midtjylland HR.
In Playmakers, the participants have to deliver a high quality within a tight timeframe and on budget. During the game, they have to lead employees with different personality profiles, manage stakeholders and deal with surprising events that challenge their plans.
“The game is efficient in training stakeholder management and the challenges in leading individual team members in relation to the rest of the team and the goals of your project”, says Mette Vestergaard.
In this way the game mimics the working conditions of a hospital. But the very fact that the game takes place in an other setting makes it easy to talk leadership and not fall into discussion about specific conditions and professional issues that lie outside the scope of the education.
“Before playing we go through the leadership theories behind the game – Tuckman on team cooperation, Goleman on situational leadership and Jung's type indicators. This provides us with a foundation for the choices we make during the game”, says Mette Vestergaard and continues:
“The participants learn what it means to be a leader, what kind of dilemmas leaders face and which options they have. It also gives them food for thought about why their own managers sometimes act the way they do”.
“Playmakers has a quality that engages everybody in the game right from the start but keeps them reflecting on their own organisation and leadership styles throughout”, Mette Vestergaard finishes.
