Miki Island by Aeqlia and GDQ Associates: Where Future Leaders and Teams Thrive
In today’s fast-evolving world, building high-performing, agile teams is essential for navigating the challenges of the modern workplace. I’m thrilled to introduce a new collaboration between Aeqlia and GDQ Associates that aims to empower organizations to do just that. Together, we’re have launched Miki Island: Building High-Performance Teams, a dynamic business simulation that helps leaders and teams adopt the mindsets, behaviors, and skills critical to thriving in the future ways of working.
At GDQ Associates, we’re committed to providing leaders, organizations, and teams with evidence-based tools to improve on-the-job performance for lasting business impact. Partnering with Aeqlia, a leader in immersive digital learning, we’ve developed Miki Island as a fun, collaborative, and engaging experience that bridges the gap between theory and practice. With both face-to-face and digital options available, Miki Island offers a unique, research-backed approach to team and leadership development.
The Power of Partnership: Aeqlia and GDQ Associates
The Aeqlia-GDQ Associates collaboration brings together deep expertise in immersive learning and research-based team dynamics. Aeqlia is known for its innovative simulations, which create hands-on, scenario-based learning experiences that help teams address real-world challenges. With GDQ Associates’ background in high-performing team research, including studies by Susan A. Wheelan and Christian Jacobson, this partnership blends proven methodologies with engaging and effective learning environments.
Our shared ambition is clear: to provide leaders, teams, and organizations with the best of both worlds—an engaging learning experience rooted in proven research and designed for real-world impact. Together, we’ve crafted Miki Island as a tool to help teams internalize high-performance behaviors, adapt to agile working methods, and ultimately boost their effectiveness in the workplace.
Introducing Miki Island: Building High-Performance Teams Business Simulation
Miki Island: Building High-Performance Teams is a simulation designed to immerse participants in the practical, collaborative work of building and sustaining high-performing teams. Set on a fictional island, the simulation guides teams through a series of interactive challenges that reflect the pressures, decisions, and dynamics found in real workplaces. Participants must work together to navigate obstacles, achieve shared goals, and practice the specific behaviors and characteristics that define high-performing, agile teams.
Through Miki Island, teams can engage in learning that’s hands-on and directly relevant to their work. The simulation is designed with specific learning outcomes in mind, so every interaction and decision made during the experience has real-world applications. This makes Miki Island a valuable tool for fostering skills that translate into meaningful workplace improvements, including stronger collaboration, adaptability, and problem-solving.
Why High-Performing Teams and Leadership Matter in the Future of Work
As organizations embrace the future of work, building high-performing teams and adaptive leadership skills becomes a vital foundation for success. High-performing teams are not only better equipped to handle the complexities of today’s business environment, but they also create positive, lasting impact across the organization.
Research by GDQ Associates has shown that high-performing, agile teams lead to greater business impact, including:
- Increased customer and manager satisfaction (Wheelan, 1998)
- Higher levels of work satisfaction and lower emotional exhaustion (Jacobson, 2014)
- Greater productivity in manufacturing (Wheelan & Furber, 2006)
- Improved financial management (Wheelan, 2005)
- Enhanced adaptability to agile methodologies (Gren, 2017)
By fostering high-performance and agility within teams, organizations can not only meet but exceed the demands of the future workplace. This is why Miki Island focuses on building the foundations of high-performing teams, teaching participants to apply these principles directly in their roles for sustainable, long-term success.
Learning Outcomes: What Miki Island Brings to Organizations
Miki Island is built to deliver impactful learning outcomes that teams can carry forward into their everyday work. Participants in this simulation can expect to achieve:
- Enhanced Collaboration: By working through complex challenges as a team, participants build essential communication and collaboration skills.
- Agile Mindset: Miki Island emphasizes adaptability, empowering teams to respond swiftly to changing situations and challenges.
- Leadership and Accountability: The simulation challenges participants to take ownership of their decisions, fostering a culture of accountability and leadership at all levels.
- Practical Application of High-Performance Behaviors: Teams learn to internalize and demonstrate the behaviors essential to high-performing, agile teams, including trust, mutual respect, and shared goals.
Each of these outcomes directly contributes to a team’s ability to drive performance and impact within the organization, ensuring that the learning extends well beyond the simulation itself.
How Miki Island Helps Organizations Thrive
In a world where change is constant, the ability to form, sustain, and lead high-performing teams is key to organizational resilience and growth. Miki Island equips participants with the tools they need to thrive in this new reality by focusing on practical, real-world skills. The simulation doesn’t just teach theory; it immerses participants in situations where they can practice high-performance behaviors and witness firsthand how these impact their results. By helping teams master the principles of high performance, Miki Island enables organizations to build the culture and adaptability needed to succeed in the future workplace. This is a learning experience designed not just to train, but to transform.
Final Thoughts: Step into the Future with Miki Island
The launch of Miki Island marks an exciting new chapter in our mission to support organizations in building high-performing, agile teams. With Aeqlia’s immersive platform and GDQ Associates’ proven research, Miki Island provides a one-of-a-kind learning experience that is as impactful as it is engaging.
We are excited to see how Miki Island can help organizations around the world navigate the future of work, equipping their teams with the tools to drive success in an ever-evolving business landscape. Thank you for joining us on this journey—let’s step into the future together, one high-performing team at a time.