Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar
IlluminatiX- Article Release
Skill City
The Toughest Test for your Softest Skills

According to Mr. Robert Greenly, Director of Leadership, MIT's Sloan School of Management, "MBA students may get by on their technical and quantitative skills the first couple of years out of school, but soon, leadership and communication skills come to the fore in distinguishing the managers whose careers really take off."

One may learn about the 4P's, the financial Ratios, the Companies' Act and much more at B-School, but even as we witness the awakening of an IT era, it is ultimately the interpersonal relationships skills of the managers that eventually determine whether a corporation will traverse the distance between technology and success. It is indeed questionable how well groomed the budding managers at the B-Schools are for this task. This is one of the grey areas that a recruiter always faces during recruitment drives at the campuses.

We are speaking about attributes such as trust, team work, common sense, alertness, negotiation skills, creativity, cognitive skills- critical, analytical and conceptual thinking. Though each one of these skills is as essential as the domain knowledge of any field, the fact remains that they are never truly evaluated in context. Somewhere along the way, this inadvertently results in a mismatch as the students don't recognize what it is that they need to look for in their own job profiles. At the other end even the companies fail to identify the real talent they look for in their workforce.

This is where one wonders, "What if you could actually measure these abilities?"

That's what SKILL CITY is all about: Measuring the softest of skills.

Conceived and developed indigenously by the students of XIMB, this game takes inspiration from the various classroom concepts ranging from Maslow's Hierarchy to the Abilene Paradox while also keeping in mind the real life implications and experiences from the corporate work culture cleverly camouflaged in the modules.

The Game:

The game runs over the lines of a "Jail Break" scenario. The voyage begins from the dungeons, as a prisoner, and ends at the town hall with the elections for the Mayor's post. The journey is full of ups and downs. Capabilities are the only resources, and time, the biggest constraint.

Played over a span of two days, the game is divided into four modules of roughly one hour each. In each module varied tasks are set out for the participants while the module itself has an overall mission for testing a specified set of soft skills.

MODULE 1

'Escape' is the key word; because you are locked in a dungeon. The gates of the prison are high and they stand between you and freedom. (Gates of the prison come in the second module; here they have to get out of their respective cells)

Your only mode of escape: your brain…

Think, analyze, evaluate, interpret and work your way out of your dark and dingy cells, using your grey cells.

MODULE 2

Finally you are out of your grim cells. But independence lies on the other side of the huge wall. You will have to device ways to cross the boundary wall. There's some risk and there are rewards. How you do it is your ingenuity- but you have to free yourself from the chains that confine your movement to the world waiting outside.

MODULE 3

The air smells of freedom, you have an open sky above your head, no walls around you, and no guards to restrict your movements- you have escaped!!!!

The city with its variety and colour beckons you to explore its treasures. But beneath all the colour and fun, the city is tricky- you have to be nimble on your feet and mind to survive here. Risk takers are the order of the day. You have to be a smart mover because your performance here determines if you have the capability to make it to the mayor's position.

MODULE 4

It's time to prove that you are the best, because only the best can become the Mayor. Popularity persuasions…do it your way. Collaboration overtakes competition. The highest seat in the city is your goal and this is your final round of climbing.

As Skill City is poised to expand its avenues and spread across the corporate community as an exhaustive tool for measuring and appraising soft skills, the team behind Skill City prides itself at having endeavoured to create a totally fantastic experience. A fun filled way to discover oneself, to gain a firsthand exposure to the skills that make a complete professional --- Skill City is the game of the future
 

Come and discover if you have it in you during Xpressions 2004 at Xavier Institute of Management, 2004 scheduled for 2^nd and 4^th of October, 2004. For further details regarding the game, participation and sponsorship opportunities contact Shantanu Saha at u103108@ximb.ac.in.
 

Contributed by:
Team Skill City
Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar
URL: www.ximb.ac.in/~media
 

Source : E-mail July 27, 2004

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