Using the outdoors for personal development purposes is not new.  It was Baden Powell’s belief that outdoor development would stiffen the slouching slum-dweller and sharpen the schoolboy if they could be extracted from the towns and taken into fresh air, preferably under canvas and wearing shorts.

The 1940s saw the arrival of adult outdoor development with sailors trained to survive the sinking of their ships and potential officers pitched against a range of physical and mental individual and team challenges at WOSB, the War Office Selection Board.

Outdoor development and action learning has evolved considerably since the end of the Second World War and is used today by private and public organisations to develop their people for one simple reason – it still works and still produces fantastic experiences and results! 

Younger members of staff tend to enjoy “conquering the mountain”, achieving physically demanding tasks of apparent high risk and building their confidence and self esteem.

Middle managers see the outdoors as a practical and memorable setting to develop their leadership and management skills.

 Whilst grappling with ropes, barrels and logs in the grounds of a country hotel senior managers and directors see these unfamiliar outdoor situations and tasks as realistic “business simulations” which need to be managed through an enterprising, pro-active approach and a positive attitude to managing change, risk and uncertainty.

          Outdoor action learning has a number of benefits
          to individuals, teams and businesses:-

• Because the exercises take place away from the workplace it provides an opportunity to experiment in a safe, low-risk environment without fear of personal or commercial repercussions.
   
• People remember the outdoor key learning points long after the indoor classroom theories have been forgotten.  This is mainly because the outdoors is about “doing” rather than listening, watching or talking with instantly transferable learning points that can be implemented in the workplace.  In the outdoors people learn to “make things happen” rather than watch things happen.
   
• The outdoors can stimulate, in a very short time, the typical stresses and strains that would take months to build up in the workplace. During exercises the team therefore has to deal with this very real extra dimension that would not be part of a more relaxed training room experience.
   
• Outdoor tasks are excellent at stimulating key business processes – i.e. setting objectives, planning, communicating and reviewing performance.  The team can then evaluate those processes that are effective and those that are not.
   
• During the exercises people push themselves and achieve more than they thought possible – I will never say “I can’t” again.
   
• The outdoors is a great leveller – if it rains, it rains on everyone in the team regardless of rank and status.  There are not privileges.
   
• Most training programmes develop leadership “skills” whereas the outdoors also develops leadership “qualities” like compassion, integrity, daring, trust and empathy.  Arguably these are the things that matter.  We do not remember Churchill, Gandhi and Martin Luther King for their ability to run a good meeting or manage their time effectively.  We remember them for their qualities and what they did with them.
   
• The outdoor programmes provide participants with an opportunity to manage change and uncertainty – now a daily event in business and our lives in general.
   
• Participants are confronted with the impact and implications of their decisions – they don’t have to wait weeks and months to see the.  The outdoors is real and immediate.
   
• It is stimulating, challenging, emotional, motivational. "Fun" (just like work?).
   

                                                         Return to top of Page