Our Team Building
Learning Philosophy

Whether you are organizing a fun bonding event or a business simulation, the following principles apply to all of our events:

Enjoyment and Fun

Let’s be honest: much of the time we are hired to provide a “fun networking” event where learning is a secondary priority. We take great pride in providing well-organized, yet utterly fun events. Regardless of your goals, engaging in enjoyable activities are catalysts for increased motivation and participation, both of which are essential characteristics of employees in an empowered and productive organization.

Experiential Learning - Learning by Doing

Learning is often most effective when it involves active participation – otherwise known as Kinesthetic Learning. Experiential learning aims not to just teach concepts, skills and values, but to offer individuals opportunities to internalize and embrace ideas and ideals because they have experienced them. The concepts of teamwork and effective leadership take on new importance and validity as the individual makes the shift from abstract understanding to intrinsic belief.

A Change of Environment and No Distractions

An unfamiliar and often unpredictable setting such as the outdoors provides an inescapable metaphor for the rapidly changing business environment. Different environments and unanticipated challenges require a more authentic and immediate engagement with the tasks and the people at hand. In a true wilderness setting there are zero distractions inherent to our daily personal and professional lives (yes, not even Blackberry reception) which allows for unprecedented focus on the team.

Leveling of Roles

Regardless of the complexity of relationships within a team, our events place everyone on common ground. While some individuals may have more outdoor skill or experience than others, creative program design can offer different levels of challenge so that co-operative team effort, not individual achievement, is of primary importance.

Trust

Working together on tasks which are unfamiliar and which require a high degree of interdependence develops trust. Relying on others in ways which are not customary for individuals in a normal working environment generates a trust and mutual respect often beyond anything previously experienced by colleagues in the workplace.

Developing Relationships Quickly

Participants are interacting in close proximity while working on new and unfamiliar challenges. The communication, collaboration and effort which are required to meet these challenges will quickly develop relationships. People may get to know each other better in a single day within this environment than over an entire year of normal working conditions.

Disequilibrium

The unfamiliarity of the challenges places people in a state of disequilibrium or disorder. They cannot easily stand behind their normal status or role. Prior experience isn't as relevant in this environment. This can allow emphasis to be placed upon both task and process related themes as the group has to organize itself around the challenge. In organizing the instability or disequilibrium, the group projects their problem-solving skills, project management ability, and leadership style onto the experience. The experience provides a unique opportunity to catch participants doing what they typically do. The learning arising from this is profound and revealing.

Decreased Time Cycle

The space between the project or challenge and the outcomes are compressed, so the consequences of organizational decisions can be easily examined and improved.

Chaos and Crisis in a Safe Environment

Teams are able to experience chaos, disorder, crisis and changing requirements for success in a safe environment where the consequences for failure are limited. The team can develop strategies and best practices for managing these issues both in this environment and back at work.

Risk Taking Encouraged

The experience allows participants to take new risks, try on new roles, and make mistakes with no real danger or cost. Each person taking a risk pushes others to take on something outside of their comfort zone. There are always individuals who shine in this environment and whose leadership ability hasn't been noticed at work.

Debriefing the Adventure (optional)

Experience – Review – Conclude – Plan - Execute

Adventurous team activities are appealing to corporate groups because they are great team building exercises, yet fun, educational, non- job threatening, and often a novel experience. Adventure activity participation allows individuals to find their own place in a group, as well as feel like he or she is a valuable contributor to the group in a non-invasive, fun and creative environment. However, the “fun” side of these activities often distracts the participants from understanding the personal growth and team dynamics that take place during the event.

Including a professional counselor/facilitator to debrief the group refocuses each individual on the aspects of the activity that will lead to productive professional, personal and team development. While each debriefing is unique to each group, our activities are designed to allow the following issues to typically emerge:

• Effective leadership qualities and techniques
• Awareness of individual and team strengths and weaknesses
• Creative problem solving
• Dysfunctional personality and work patterns
• Self awareness of individual roles within a working unit
• The importance of each individual within a team

• Awareness of the benefits of teamwork
• Verbal and non-verbal communication skills
• Work ethic
• Trust among teammates/co-workers
• Strategies for working with people with different ideas and opinions

A Wonderful Alternative for Debriefing an Effective Large Group Program

A few years ago we had an epiphany. While we pride ourselves in our business acumen and objective viewpoint, we realized a simple fact: we don’t go to work everyday in the same place as the participants in our programs. We then asked ourselves how we could overcome this fact and what did the perfect debrief session look like to us. To answer this question we collaborated with one of our clients to create the uniquely effective “Observer Debrief” method that can be applied to any program. We have since utilized it for the past 3 years and found it to be the most impactful method to debrief large groups. Ask us about applying it to your next event!