LOS ANGELES (dpa) – For Clark Aldrich, the co-founder of a computer learning company, the recent rash of corporate scandals is proving the old Chinese adage that every great problem also represents a great opportunity.
Aldrich’s company SimuLearn has just released an innovative training programme for corporate leaders.Instead of boring audiences with endless power point presentations and piles of dry documents, the training programme “Virtual Leader” is built as a fully functioning computer game that resembles popular pastimes like “The Sims”.Using three-dimensional characters, full animation and high power software rendering tools, the game places users in highly realistic virtual situations and teaches them pragmatic skills that help them make good decisions.“The interest has been fantastic,” says Aldrich. “Our product has only been around for a month but we are talking to a lot of Fortune 500 companies.”The game exists as an off-the-shelf product that contains a variety of scenarios.Players for example are taught how to build alliances with people, how to outmanoeuvre a boss who is planning a shady strategy, and how to make business decisions that are both ethically and financially sound.The concept of “Virtual Leader” is far from theoretical. Its characters have the ability to communicate through hundreds of phrases, facial expressions and body language that can prepare players for tough situations in real boardrooms and offices.“The bots (computer-controlled characters) have all sorts of behaviour patterns,” Aldrich says. “They can be sneaky, in-your-face, edgy, bored. However they’re acting, you have to decide how to effectively deal with that.”“If you were a mid-level accountant who saw bad things happening at disgraced accounting giant Arthur Andersen, you’d have a more effective approach to dealing with those issues,” Aldrich says. “There were people who knew things were going wrong, but they didn’t have the skills to bring those issues to light.”With the increased focus on business ethics and corporate governance, Aldrich is planning to hire teams of experts to customize the program for specific companies and situations. He is also discovering that his original premise of targeting corporate leaders was not inclusive enough.“Companies want it for workers at every level,” he says. “They are realizing that leadership is too important to be left to the leaders.”Business schools are also paying close attention to the recent corporate scandals. Students at the University of California at Irvine will next term be able to take a course on the fall of Enron, featuring none other than company whistle-blower Sherron Watkins.So far 55 students have filled up the six-week Enron class, but the university said that hundreds more would have liked to participate. Course director Professor Richard McKenzie told the Los Angeles Times that he hopes the course “becomes an investigation into Enron’s rise and collapse, what Enron did right and wrong. There are lessons to learn.”While UC Irvine’s appears to be the only large U.S. business school devoting an entire course to Enron, professors from Stanford to Harvard say they will incorporate the company’s real-world lessons into their classes.But some professors believe that the temptation of shady business dealings will always be stronger than the lessons taught in a classroom, virtual or otherwise.“No walk of life is immune to people who don’t have the will or conscience to keep them from responding to temptation,” said Ben Hermalin, dean of UC Berkeley’s Haas School. “There’s a lot of money out there.”
