In an upcoming, customized simulation, exper!ence it inc. will design their newest experience for the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) in Greensboro, North Carolina. CCL has been lauded as one of the “top five providers of executive education” in the world according to a survey conducted by the Financial Times. Organizations and individuals from all over the world were asked to rate leading executive education providers and CCL was counted among notoriously excellent facilities such as Duke University, global business school INSEAD and Switzerland’s IMD, despite being the only institution in the survey whose main area of expertise is leadership education. There are CCL campuses in North America, Europe and Asia, where faculty, staff and students are undoubtedly proud and excited to have cracked the Financial Times’ top 10 for the fifth year in a row.

Many global leadership programs teach very mechanical things, such as ‘how long to hold a business card’ or other tried but tired business edicts. On a much larger scale, CCL’s Global Leader’s Program will be designed for people who are given new responsibilities and it will have them fully immersed in the experience of managing and leading in a global context. The complexity or ‘multi-plexity’ will be a quantum step for some managers and leaders to take. In the research stage, an executive at BP in London expressed it this way, “After I was given global responsibilities in my new role, I realized that everything I had learned up to that point in time in my career, was about 10% of what I needed now to lead well in this new global role.” The simulation is being designed to provide a deep and sophisticated experience for leaders and managers who have been given new regional and global responsibilities. The goal is to help them understand and prepare for the new skills and mindset that can help them thrive in their new roles.

The CCL custom design promises to be one of exper!ence it’s most innovative and integrated simulations to date. This simulation will be conducted simultaneously in three continents and participants will interact with one another across the program. So the decision made in Singapore will affect the starting position of the group in Brussels, and the decisions they then make in Brussels will go on to affect the starting position of the next group in the US. Finally the choices that the leaders make in the US will complete the circle and affect Singapore. This cycle will repeat itself a number of times across three days and across each time zone. The experience for the participants will be one of understanding and experiencing the interconnectedness of global business today; where your decision can be felt all around the world.

“Value for money” and “quality of teaching materials” were hailed as CCL’s strong points by the Financial Times. Ever since being asked to conduct a training simulation for an organization that boasts such tremendous accolades, everyone at exper!ence it has felt humbly honoured. e! associate writer Hunter Collins is overwhelmed by the opportunity to be involved with such an interesting and challenging project design. “To be fortunate enough to write for them is like writing for the Steven Spielberg of leadership development.”

CCL instructs approximately 100,000 professional leaders from over 2,000 organizations each year, in both the public and private sectors, notably two-thirds of the Fortune 500. exper!ence it’s Global Leader’s Program is expected to make its first run in early 2007.