The Chaos Game

As a student of leadership, I believe that this “chaos” game is an exercise which I will do with many teams to come in the future for now I was able to play this game with a group of family and friends recently. At first they were all moaning and groaning about having to play one of my mind games which I learned from class, but in the end they were all having a good time and learning a bit about themselves. It was interesting that this game was very chaotic until it was completed within two minutes, I found it interesting because it was chaotic until I asked the question at the end. When I asked them if they knew how long this would take if someone was in charge if this task, they all laughed but at the same time I witnessed that everyone also had a light bulb go off in their head. It seemed as though everyone realized that perhaps always leaning on an individual to lead might not be the greatest thing. I think that as a whole the group saw with their own eyes how quickly a task can get completed when people take charge of their own work and do not need to ask for permission from someone else.

What this exercise means to me is that, I need to find a way to emulate this situation in real life. As a manger I need to make sure my employees can make decisions on their own, are not afraid of the consequences, do not wait for permission to do their job. These are all ideas which came to me as I saw the chaos game come to an end. After reading chapter six Obolensky (2014), I also realized that there are other important lessons to be learned from the chaos game, lessons like having boundaries, a few simple rules, and having a clear objective. These are important lessons because as a leader I can incorporate these lessons into my game plan and my quest towards empowering my employees. If I am to empower my employees I just need to give them some simple rules which they must follow so to establish a clear boundary, and I also need to give them a clear objective so that they have a goal to strive for.

During this game I also realized that if I were to give constant feedback to my employees instead of trying to lead them, I can be much more effective as a leader. If I could “give feedback so that every individual knows at any time where they are in relationship to achieving their objective” (Obelensky, 2014, pg. 104), than these individuals would understand how they could correct themselves towards achieving the end goal. Continuous feedback allows individuals to correct themselves and judge if they are on the correct path without having to hear it from a supervisor, feedback is an important part of empowering employees.

Last but not least, I have to believe that for me the most important part of this exercise is that it gives me a chance to realize who has the skill and the will to be successful. As I was conducting this exercise I was able to spot the person that excelled the most, and the person that wanted to be the best. For a manager to have an opportunity to scout talent is imperative, being able to find the people that you can trust will make letting your employees make more decisions much easier.

I believe that this exercise works great for both sides, the employees and the managers. On one side you have the employees who get to see that sometimes things can be much easier if they do not have to ask for permission to complete every task. On the other side managers can see that it is okay to empower employees, and they can all see who their future leaders will be. This is a great example and I am sure that I will end up using it for many years to come.

Reference:

Obolensky, N. (2014). Complex Adaptive Leadership: Embracing Paradox and Uncertainty. Farnham, Surrey: Gower.