The Practice of Change

Think your change team has a better idea? Before you launch your change effort, why not beta-test your plan by entering the expanding world of computer simulations?

At one time, simulation technology was used exclusively by military strategists and engineers for testing design prototypes. But now, companies are increasingly using that technology as a tool for change. Whether you're leading people or developing strategies, practicing in a simulated environment will help you get it right when it counts.

Business simulations let you create a model and test what-if scenarios before you attempt to change a marketing campaign or launch a radical new strategy. If your experiment doesn't work, you've avoided a very public mistake. If it does work, you have proof-of-concept results that can be taken to your senior team.

Although computer simulations are sporting all manner of technological bells and whistles these days, they're not just overpriced PlayStations. A good "sim" usually tells a good story, letting you explore the consequences of your decisions so you can see how different scenarios might unfold.

Can the virtual world help us get our bearings amid all the changes that are occurring in the real world of business? To answer that question, we've taken an in-depth look at how two radically different organizations -- the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Optus Corp., a fast-growing Canadian company -- are using two radically different simulations to make and to deal with change. Here are their stories.

The Change Effort: To capture and share the institutional knowledge that's been bleeding out of the federal Environmental Protection Agency, and to transform EPA staffers from by-the-book bureaucrats into high-stakes diplomats.

The Simulation: A nine-disk CD-ROM titled "Evans Bay: A Town Divided," custom-made for the EPA by the Institute for the Learning Sciences at Northwestern University.

Kristi Rea, 28, is preparing for battle. As a city program manager with the EPA's Urban Environmental Initiative, Rea must facilitate a series of public hearings on how to clean up bacterial and chemical contamination in the Woonasquatucket River, which bisects Providence, Rhode Island.

To Rea, the event looks like a lose-lose situation. Community activists, lawyers for the polluters, environmental groups, and the city's elected officials will all be at the hearings, and each of those groups expects her to back it completely.

Unlike former EPA staffers, Rea won't have the option of simply reciting the federal government's environmental regulations. As a result of an initiative to radically reinvent the agency's command-and-control culture, Rea has a new mission: to figure out a way to mediate what promises to be a no-holds-barred debate. Gone are the days when Rea could act the part of the enforcer. In her new role, she now has to be a negotiator. She must head off a crisis by finding a way to develop a cleanup plan that each of the warring factions can live with. To make the process work, she must turn all these adversaries into allies.

Rea is also dealing with a personal change. Before joining the EPA two years ago, she worked as manager of international community affairs for a 300-person environmental-technology firm. Now she must think like a representative of a federal agency comprising 80,000 people. "I'm on a steep learning curve," she concedes. "I'm still trying to figure out what to say when you have the force of the government behind you."

But thanks to "Evans Bay," a custom-made simulation from the Institute for the Learning Sciences (ILS), Rea can spar a few practice rounds before the main event. The computer-based sim allows Rea to hone her negotiating skills -- without fear of alienating half the city of Providence.

Welcome to Sim World

Rea boots up her Dell desktop computer, launches the simulation program, and enters the fictional town of Evans Bay. As a video streams across her computer monitor, the simulation drops Rea into her EPA "office," complete with an overstuffed inbox and a stash of memos that spill across her desk. The sim also delivers lifelike "surround sound": Phones ring in the background; voices are clear and distortion free.

Like Providence, Evans Bay is dealing with PCB contamination: For years, a company called Evercell buried cast-off industrial capacitors that have leaked PCBs into the ground. Rea's "supervisor" informs her that she must lead a public hearing within a few hours, during which all sides will tussle over the best way to get rid of the polluted soil.

As the simulation unfolds, a rep from Evercell drops into Rea's office and lays out the company's proposal to incinerate the PCB-laden soil. The rep calls the counterproposal from the Evans Bay retailers' association "irresponsible and dangerous." Then she fires off the big question: "Which plan will the EPA back?"

At this point, the narrative stops, and a series of multiple-choice options scroll down the left side of Rea's computer screen: She can side with Evercell, side with the Evans Bay retailers, or wait to hear from all sides. Deciding that she should listen before she acts, Rea clicks on the last choice. As the video resumes, Evercell's rep reacts to the decision by leaning over Rea's desk and lowering her voice: "You can't afford to ignore our concerns." The lesson: In environmental debates, there are no perfect solutions.