Outdoor Trainings
What are Outdoor Trainings good for?
It is important to know what training aims can be achieved through outdoor trainings. In direct comparison with indoor methods it performs at least as well (or better) for most trainings objectives. These objectives include communication, leadership skills development, team building, change skills development, preparation of sales teams, or the individual or group level development of creativity and problem solving. For more information about these programs, please refer to our products section.
How is a training constructed?
A typical outdoor training lasts two to three days. However, this is only the program itself. Like other organization development specialists, we also think in terms of development processes. These include important components like a status and needs analysis before the training, as well as gauging and follow-up after the training.
The training itself is construed of the alteration of three major components:
1. The indoor stage consists of preparation and getting in the mood for the activities, as well as theoretical inputs and models.
2. This stage is usually followed by outdoor activities. These may include navigation in the woods, communication activities, ‘high altitude’ activities (with professional belaying), longer and more complex project tasks (lasting up to half a day), or shorter activities. These require creative problem solving abilities, some of which may be pursued indoors in case of bad weather. When constructing the individual training we usually try to select from each program type, depending on the needs and requirements of the client. Our training inventory is updated and expanded on a daily basis and already holds several hundred activities.
3. The third stage is the processing of activities, as well as analyzing their relationship to hypotheses and theories. The main pillars of this processing are the observations made by our trainers, the opinion of the team about itself, as well as the synergies between theory and practice. Depending on the depth of experiences, this stage may range from a few minutes of outdoor discussion to half a day spent in an analytical workshop.
Generally, activities build upon each other, and together with the theoretical background they guide participants along a logical and easy-to-follow train of thoughts. Learning and development is based on the Learning Cycle model by Kolb*. We strive to provide our participants with a learning experience which brings about a change in behavior instead of merely adding to their theoretical knowledge base.
*D. A. Kolb, Experiential learning: experience as a source of learning and development, London: Prentice Hall, (1984)
Based on a preliminary status analysis, programs are tailored to the needs and situation of our client. Therefore the status analysis may add new elements to the final program.
A “MINE OF IDEAS” – CREATIVITY TRAINING
On a market that is increasingly competitive, we believe the only way for organizations to survive and continually develop is to employ creative people who are capable of continuous renewal themselves. In fact, it is not enough for people to be creative: the organization itself must become a Mine of Ideas, where the product is not a service or a ware but the innovation itself.
It is clear that, with an abundance of choices and opportunities facing us, the only way for a product to remain competitive is to be better and newer than yesterday’s products.
And it takes a completely new approach in order to be able to create such a product, a new approach from everyone involved in decision-making. It is this recognition our Creative Problem Solving Training is based on.
THE WINNING TEAM
This training is recommended to teams from any field of business who seek to achieve extraordinary performance.
Objectives of the program:
- improve the functioning of the team in areas where mutual success and top cooperative performance matter most,
- develop individual skills needed to achieve this top performance,
- strengthen cohesion and cooperation within the team, enhance team spirit.
LEADING TO SUCCESS
This training is aimed at clients who are (or soon will be) in a managerial position. It is also aimed at managers and project leaders who manage their team for a single project or a limited time only.
Objectives of the program
- formulate a modern managerial approach,
- develop the skills needed to efficiently carry out traditional managerial functions (goal setting, planning, task delegation, controlling etc.),
- develop managerial skills and methods necessary for creating a team and operating it efficiently in longer term,
- reinforce managerial tools which are useful and efficient in hard times (limited time, stress, lack of resources etc.)
CHANGE SKILLS DEVELOPMENT
It is recommended to all individuals (primarily managers) and teams whose success largely depends on how they can adapt to the rapid change of environmental conditions, or whether or not they can spearhead the organizational changes and initiate processes of change themselves.
Objectives of the program
- create a positive attitude towards change, reinforce the approach that “change is an opportunity”,
- enhance the change skills in participants, which enables them to more effectively handle new, unknown situations,
- get participants to recognize and practice the importance of management support in individual change.
THE PROBLEM SOLVING TEAM
This program is recommended to teams that often have to face problems and challenges in the course of their work which they had not previously developed solutions for.
Objectives of the program
- prepare participants to the successful management of problem solving processes, especially when pressed for time,
- enhance the abilities necessary for solving problems which arise in completely new situations,
- enhance team spirit as well as motivation and skills needed for cooperative problem solving.
THE COMMUNICATIVE TEAM
The program benefits all who communicate a lot in the course of their work, and whose success primarily depends on how effectively they communicate (leaders, managers, customer service or partner account personnel, anyone working in a team etc.).
Objectives of the program
- demonstrate that the improvement of communication can enhance the success of interpersonal work,
- enhance communication skills which improve the efficiency of carrying out tasks,
- enhance the communication inventory necessary for healthy labor partnerships.
RAINBOW, OR THE DIVERSITY OF PEOPLE WITHIN A TEAM
We can experience just how different people are, both in business and private life. This often leads to burdened, dysfunctional relationships, disagreements and conflicts. On the other hand we can often wonderfully complement each other, we can rely on each other’s strengths, and truly good relationships often prove to be based on the principle of “opposites attract”.
- What decides whether or not our relationships turn out for the better or for the worse?
- What can we do to ensure that our dissimilarities create complementary, constructive relationships?
These are the issues we seek an answer to in our three-day program.