Module 3: CapsimInbox Exercise - General Management

Colorado State University- Global Campus

October 11th, 2020

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CapsimInbox Exercise - General Management

Introduction

The CapismInbox Exercise is a simulation that assesses a manager by organizing,

leading, problem solving, communicating, and initiating. During the simulation you’re a

manager that’s faced with hard decisions that you could potentially encounter as being a manager

in a company. The simulation starts with a synopsis of what you’re expecting to see as a manager

for this particular company. Throughout the simulation you will receive emails that you must

respond to that are multiple choice answers the key is to make the most sound decision possible.

After you reply to the emails you will receive a feedback report of how accurately you responded

to the emails as a manager. For the remainder of this assignment I will explain how well or not

so well I did during the simulation.

Overall Performance

CapsimInbox Exercise rated my overall performance a 39th percentile. My overall

percentile was compiled by how accurately I responded to emails and instant messages from

employees, managers and stakeholders. There were a total of 22 messages that I was asked to

read thoroughly and make the best decision for each email and/or instant message. The result

indicates that I scored 39 percent higher than others who have previously completed the

CapsimInbox Exercise.

Competencies

Competencies are compiled of four key types of people management which is Structuring

Work (SW), Acquiring Talent (AT), Managing Talent (MT), and Rewarding Performance (RP).
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Structuring Work is the process of handling job requirements and responsibilities. During

structuring work I scored 25 percent when it came to addressing the job requirements and

responsibilities of said email and/or messages. Acquiring Talent, deals with recruiting and

employee selection. During the CapsimInbox Exercise I scored 50 percent in this section.

Managing Talent is the training and development portion of the CapsimInbox Exercise. I scored

25 percent in the section pertaining to Managing Talent. Rewarding Performance is rather self

explanatory, it’s the process of compensating employees as well as monitoring performance. In

this section of competencies I scored 50 percent. Overall I felt my competencies score were

alarming on how underwhelmingly I performed, I like to hang my hat on how competent I

typically am in my real world environment.

Self-Awareness

In the previous section I broke down how I handled responding to emails and/or

messages by category. Self-awareness is a score that ties how I did from an overall perspective

based on how I perceived myself prior to taking the CapsimInbox Exercise to how I actually did

in the exercise. Currently, my accuracy is very low due to prior doing the exercise I scored

myself very high but in actuality I didn’t score anywhere near the way I perceived myself. The

self awareness index is on a scale from 0 (being the lowest score) to 6 (being the highest score), I

scored next to the lowest possible a “1”. However, no one is the best at everything and there is

always room for improvement. Improvement starts with identifying where my shortcomings are

at and building upon that.

Skill Gap
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The skill gap prediction I was confident in most of the subjects that I would achieve over

a 65 percent rate in each category besides organization. The reality is I underachieved in each

category drastically in every category, I didn’t even come close in every category. The first skill

set was Organizing, I know in my personal life I’m a chaos master. Organizing is one of my

main weaknesses, I can freestyle in every situation and somehow come out successful. It's almost

a talent at this point in my life. In organizing I rated myself at 40 percent but I scored 20 percent

in CapsimInbox Exercise which isn’t surprising to me. The next Category is Leadership, this is

the category where I felt I would be the strongest due to my personal life; I never had a task that

I couldn’t lead a group of men and women to accomplish a task. Although in the simulation I fell

very short of my initial rating of 95 percent; In the simulation I scored 57 percent. After the

leadership category is Problem Solving, I assumed that I was above average in problem solving

in which I scored myself a 65 percent. However I scored a 48 percent in which I feel this is the

most accurate rating due to problem solving on my own is a battle for me. Typically, I do well in

problem solving but it takes me longer to solve issues in a work environment because I choose to

take my time and find every possible solution and try to visualize every possible outcome.

Communicating was an odd rating for me because we were evaluated based on emails and/or

instant messaging which is not true communication to me for the fact a lot can get lost in

translation through an email. Sending an email and/or instant message in my world is typically

used for supporting documents to hold someone accountable; I either call or do a face-to-face

meeting to communicate effectively. That’s neither here nor there, I rated myself a 65 percent

but I scored a 36 percent. Lastly, the skill set I do the best is initiating which is the highest I rated

myself personally. In my personal life I’m known as a very proactive leader; so proactive I

earned the nickname “Future” because I always got ahead of tasks that didn’t make sense at the
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time to everyone but months later it would become a big issue by division leadership but my

company was already ahead of the game. I rated myself 100 percent but my actual rating is 64

percent.

The Way Ahead

The way ahead to improve on my skill set I believe should be reasonable and should be

left to transparency and time. I do believe age equates to wisdom; especially, when you’re

getting constant repetition at what I’m lacking in. Now transparency is printing out this feedback

report then take it to my manager to have him review the report with me to critique me and hear

it from someone who knows me best. After we review every skill set then we can brainstorm a

course of action to how I can improve as a leader. Personally, it’s hard for me to say what I could

do for myself on how I can improve because you only know what you know but talking to

someone that has been around the block for 20+ years in the same career field can tell me exactly

what I’m doing right and wrong then help me to get to the next level.

Reference:

● https://ww5.capsim.com/capsiminbox/student/walkthrough/report