True training, in our staff's experience, is about reflecting
on and changing people's attitude and/or behaviour in a
mutually agreed way.
"Jolly" team building has a valid place in our training
repertoire but it is very distinct from serious staff development
and process skills development training which we tend to refer
toas OMD (outdoor management development ) training. We also
refer to basic leadership skills development and management skills
& process skills development...such as boosting problem solving
skills, heightening decision making skills, grooming the ability to
run meaningful meetings, and so on. As more and more clients
become interested in continuous improvement processes - CIP -
often using models such as the European Foundation for Quality
Management's Business Excellence Model, we also refer to
"serious training" also including forums for discussing and
developing ideas for driving quality improvements within
organisations coming away on residentials to prove a
" level playing field" where staff of different grades can have
open forums and frank exchanges of constructive ideas to help
boost the performance of their teams. This sort of outdoor training
event is, clearly, quite distinct and a little longer than the sort of
team build event where one spends a half day paintballing and
then slopes off to the pub to discuss the cricket scores !
All too often these days people contacting me refer to
"team building " in such a loose way that it takes a while
to find out exactly what's wanted.
At Peak Activities we are always happy to run "jollies"
and light-hearted social team builds through our Corporate
Events division but our training personnel will always
distinguish between true training per se. and "jollies" .
They are not quite the same thing, although some people
these days may class all outdoor training as
essentially similar generic Outwa*d B**nd courses.
Paradoxically a "serious" training event with us
can be a heap of fun and involve lots more laughter
than we see, say, amongst the Lycra clad stag groups
we sometimes meet "enjoying themselves" in the local
pub after a gruelling day of mountain biking - so the
term "serious training" is perhaps a misnomer...we
mean by that expression any training event which has
serious intentions - often written down by ourselves
and the clients as training objectives and measured and
evaluated & benchmarked afterwards using prescribed
key performance indicators and other pre-agreed
measures of performance.
In fairness if you looking through a bunch of photos
taken from a training course and an activity holiday
it may be hard at times for an outsider to tell which
photo was taken on which event.They both will have
images of fun and laughter, and both may involve
drinking in bar in the evening .....so what's the
essential difference ? There will be serious benefits
with a serious event - rather than just having fun.
Both may be perfectly valid things for groups to do,
but below are some personal thoughts on what might
make a Peak Activities Ltd training investment distinct
from one of our "jolly" corporate entertainment events....
which really have far less impact on the attitudes, skills
& behaviour of the delegates and stakeholders involved.
Peak Activities' clients include Rolls Royce Jet Engine Designers.
Outdoor training with Peak Activities will invartiably
last several days and will usually involve a structured
and carefully designed set of progressive task based
problem solving sessions followed by reviews. The
reviews will be chaired by our our qualified trainers
where learning points can be highlighted, discussed and
developed. Almost every experiential training company's
site seems to be obliged to put a diagram of Kolb's
learning cycle in to their texts at this point...so
we won't ( just to be different...and to avoid patronising
our readers). Suffice to say we can all learn from
our successes (knowledge) and our failures (wisdom)
and serious foul up's (what Oscar Wilde called "experience"
!!!). We now have 25+ years of "experience" here and know
that outdoor leaning can be very useful and non-threatening.
At the end of the day a serious-at-the-time exercise can
be put down to experience and hasn't cost the company
millions in reality and will be the source of some good
banter in the bar later ! As one of our clients once
said at a pre-trip briefing " if a task's worth doing,
it's especially worthwile if we do badly some of the
time in training so we can learn from it, move forwards
and avoid being complacent ! " As an explosives demolition
expert himself, we could all appreciate what he was talking
about !
All things being equal, we at Peak Activities Limited
believe that in the field of outdoor development training
training & experiential learning pedagogy, all programmes
should be both client & delegate focussed. Insofar as
possible the delegates should take on as much ownership
of the event as possible..and they deserve designated
champions to help, support and nature them after a course
is ended.
Programmes should also be safe both emotionally & physically
for those with little or no prior experience of such training
techniques..and for those with no special level of fitness.
OMD Programmes should be designed to be fun,
engaging & enjoyable, non-machismo & non-threatening
and there should be no "hidden agendas".
Moreover, we believe that when considering choosing
a programmes' actual content with our clients...
1) One activity is more worthwhile than another
it is permits students/delegates to make
informed choices in carrying out the activity
and the opportunity to reflect on the consequences
of their choices.
2) One activity is more worthwhile than another if it
assigns students active roles in the learning situation
rather than passive ones.
3) One activity is more worthwhile than another
if it asks students to engage in inquiry of ideas,
applications of intellectual processes or current problems
either personal, social or work-related.
4) One activity is more worthwhile than another if it
involves students with realia (ie real objects,
materials, data or artefacts).
5) One activity is more worthwhile than another if
the compeltion of a task can be accomplished
successfully by students of different fitnesses
at several different levels of ability, if
necessary with some inputs from Directing Staff.
6) One activity is more worthwhile than another if
it chalklenges students to examine in a new setting
an idea, an application of an intellectual process, or a
current problem which has not been previously studied.
7) One activity is more worthwhile than another if
it requires students to examine topics or issues that
citizens in our society do not normally examine - and
that are typically ignored by the major communications
media in our nation.
8) One activity is more worthwhile than another if
it involves students and tutors in "risk taking" - not a
risk of life and limb - but a risk of success or failure.
9) One activity is more worthwhile than another if
it requires students to rewrite, rehearse and polish their
initial efforts..
10) One activity is more worthwhile than another if it
involves sudents in the application and mastery of
meaningful rules and standards or disciplines.
11) One activity is more worthwhile than another if it
gives students the chance to share in the planning,
the carrying out of a plan, or the results of an
interesting and engaging activity with others.
12) One activity is more worthwhile than another if it is
relevent to the expressed training needs,
interests and purposes of the students.
13) An activity which inculcates the desired outputs and
effects enjoyably in a shorter time than others activities
is probably going to be more useful to the delegates than
activities which take up lots of time.
14) Activities packed into programmes which are too short
a duration(say at the client's request) may be far less
effective in providing useful forums for open discussion
than activities within more realistic programmes of a
slightly longer duration.
(After comments on active learning curriculum planning by Rath 1970)
Programmes should be vivid and engaging and should have
everyone fully involved, but not necessarily all doing the same things,
and it should inculcate a pattern of involuntary learning that means
people can't help but get involved and learn and take away useful
lessons and insights. At the simplest level, outdoor training is fun
and a great way to get to know & understand people better. For new
teams and newly appointed managers there are many lessons that can be
learned quickly. At best a good programme can often be dovetailed into
other inititives back at the ranch (PDP's, ISO 9000, Investor in People, etc.)
and can really accelerate the learning process considerably and speed up the
development of a wide range of management and teamworking process skills .
At Rock Lea we have the means through various activities to heighten
people's emotional states. For example, through exciting and challenging
activities. Other means might involve a time limit or multiple tasking. This
can make a leader's job much harder during an exercise..and of course doing
a task underground or on water or on the edge of a clifftop may also heighten
the pulse rate. In our experience people revert to type when under mild stress,
and this is a useful phenomenon which can be used in a good humoured way
to help discuss and reflect on leadership styles, decision-making processes,
efficent teamworking methods, communications, delegation, etc. in subsequent
reviews.
At a higher level, outdoor based training may be able to afford delegates
insights and changes in attitudes and behaviour patterns that may not
be so easily or safely inculcated or fed back to people so effectively in their
normal work environment. I frequently point out to clients that we are not
"experts" in outdoor training, but we do have many years of experience of providing
clients with appropriate "open forums" for colleagues in real teams to exchange
of ideas, beliefs, values, and to heighten sensitivity of other people's problems,
etc. Being in a strange new environment often helps strip away rank, clannish
feelings, assumptions and prejudices, and can generate a real feeling of fellowship
with a sense of open-ness, care and a willingness to help each other that is hard to
describe in words to one who hasn't experienced the feeling. Residentials also
helps clients get away from the ringing telephones and "chill-out" away from other
distractions.
Whether you're "up to your bottom in crocodiles" or "fire-fighting", a relaxing
strategic review of modern swamp draining and fire fighting techniques
might be just what you need ! A change can be as good as a rest and this is
particularly valuable for cross-functional team development when lots of little
teams need to start working as a more cohesive whole to enable cultural change,
continuous improvement, implemenation of Kaizen philosophy and so on. I wonder
how many firms are out there where their senior managers keep saying they'd like
to see their teams working more closely together ?
As well as running all kinds of traditional
outdoor based sports, such as climbing
and caving, we specialise in the design &
provision of carefully tailored and supervised
task-based problem solving sessions
followed by reviews accelerating meaningful
discussions of personal and team issues.
We have over 2 gigabytes of exercises and
training materials on file developed and tried
and tested over 20 years. Some of these you
may find elsewhere. Many are unique and
the locations where we run these tasks, such as
on our farm (above) are quite exclusive venues.
Ideal for team building !
Many of our clients have found that a
modest training investment with us has
quickly returned massive benefits in terms
of objective outcomes such as reduced
lead times., team costs efficiencies, reduced
scrap values, heightened customer
satisfaction, greater staff motivation
and so on. Such clients see our work
as part of their targeted investments
rather than as an outgoing on a
training budget.
Endorsements Lucas Aerospace, Rolls Royce and other case studies
Please call us on 01433-650345 to discuss
your specific needs & the various possibilities
further.
Rock Lea Activity & Training Centre
Station Road, Hathersage, Hope Valley,
Peak District National Park, S32 1DD
Telephone +44(0) 1433-650345
Serious training does not have to be machismo,
but it does need to be carefully focussed on the
agreed aims and aspirations of the participants.