Business Management Activity

Hey!

Teaching Business Management to kids, for me the best thing to do is give them some experience through managing each other.

Here is one successful activity I ran.

Key Concepts:

• Organizational Structures (Hierarchy vs Flat)
• Role of Management  (Controlling, Planning, Organizing, Directing)

 Before teaching this lesson we had examined organisation structures and the students understood different models (advantages and disadvantages)

Resources
Sets of Tangrams 2 for each team. 
Animal pictures that Tangrams can be made into eg Rabbit
Scissors for each group

1. Organise the room into  teams of hierarchical structure. I used the following.

1 CEO who faces next level.

2 Middle Managers who face each other

4-5 Production workers grouped at back of room.

2. Instruct students to sit where they wish without telling them the purpose (some will cotton on)

3. Hand out following instructions (don't let groups talk)

CEO

You are not allowed to show anyone the animal.

You must get your team  to create the animal you have been given.

You must only use verbal communication to instruct your managers and can not communicate with production factory (You don’t have time for that!)

Managers

Your job is to motivate, supervise and direct the production workers. As your office is above them you only communicate with non verbal communication (gestures) You may talk to your CEO and carry out the orders they give you. You are not allowed to do any of the work (you’re a manager your job is to manage)

Production Workers

Your job is to produce shapes for your business. You get paid by the hour so doesn’t matter how many you produce or the quality. If your manager is not looking you may go on your phone or chat to co workers.

Never talk to your CEO or managers or you will be fired

4. Give your CEO the picture of the Tangram animal, the scissors and  Tangrams (the two sets makes it more confusing which is good).

5. Let the fun begin, basically the game is over when the production workers in a team make the shape. You can give that team a new animal to create and give another student turn at being CEO.