Mark Scriven asked:
The most effective team-building training programs are custom designed to meet specific client needs and should be designed with the strategic direction and vision of the business in mind. By getting people to communicate face-to-face, adventure activities are a revitalizing change from the impersonal world of email and telephone correspondence. And the successful implementation of an outdoors activity under trying circumstances leads to a feeling of personal fulfillment – exactly the situation you’d like replicated within a company framework.
Spin-offs from a successful adventure team-building exercise include improved creativity and problem solving, increased motivation and enthusiasm, and higher productivity. Since adventure activities tend to remove the hierarchy of an organization, or lessen its importance to the task at hand, the skills of everyone from senior management to the newest employees are needed to solve the problems experienced in unusual outdoor situations. Since everyone operates on the same level, and their input is of the equal value and importance.
Adventure activities build confidence and create leaders.
Team building and training experiences in the outdoors also improves self-confidence. By placing people in unpredictable situations, activity organizers challenge the group’s ability to adapt and deal with problems. From within these situations, leaders arise and these people are often suitable for leadership positions within a company. Although it is important that the competitive nature of the activities doesn’t lead to conflict, a certain amount of creative tension is necessary in the operation of a modern company. And adventure activities themselves offer a different approach to the usual team building activities in that they encourage employees to think outside the box in order to solve problems.
Because participants are generally more relaxed, team development experiences in natural environments are consistently rated as ‘highly satisfying’ compared to indoor events. The best adventure activities transfer lessons learned outdoors back to the corporate environment. By developing individual and team strengths, participants learn to trust their colleagues and interact with each other in a more dynamic way.
Even inter-department conflicts can be resolved when adventure activities are planned to make members of the different groups see things from each other’s perspectives. And taking people out of their usual workplace comfort zone and putting them all together in a different environment to learn a new activity makes them bond quickly. With an increased level of trust in their colleagues, individuals are less likely to feel intimidated about presenting their ideas and taking an active involvement in the decision-making process.
The best team building and training companies are always on the look out for new places to visit and unique activities for employees to experience. New destinations for inspirational corporate team building events include Ireland, Iceland and Marrakech.
Current destinations offered by innovative UK corporate events management company 925Alive includes trips to Canada’s Boreal forest to see the Black Bear in its natural habitat; accommodation with French style and flair in the Cote d’Azur and Alpes Maritimes; sailing around the Greek Islands; tandem skydiving or scuba diving in Spain; and a Finnish arctic adventure with a snowmobile or dog sled safari and a night in a wilderness cabin. By rewarding employee performance with such exotic travel incentives, your staff will more than return the cost in improved workplace performance.