Patient Zero: Leadership and Team Decision Making Simulation

What It Is: A two-hour, multiplayer leadership simulation from Harvard Business Publishing and Forio in which teams of advisors lead a fictional country through an escalating outbreak crisis, making high-stakes ethical decisions with incomplete information and no established precedent to guide them. 

Why It Matters: The simulation is built specifically to expose the gap between a team's stated values and its actual behavior under pressure — forcing profound disagreement within the team itself, not just against an external threat. That tension mirrors what many public affairs and crisis-communications teams experience when a company's stated commitments meet a fast-moving, high-stakes real-world event. 

How to Use It: Use with public affairs, communications, or executive teams as a low-stakes way to pressure-test how your organization's decision-making process holds up under disagreement and incomplete information, before a real crisis puts those same dynamics to the test.