Does anyone have any good outdoor exercises for team leaders and/or managers? We're holding a management course in a conference centre and there is no special equipment outside but the company wants an 'outdoor' element included. Any ideas?
Colette Johnson
5 Responses
outdoor exercises
Depending on your group size, outcomes required and insurance issues there are loads of easy to produce outdoor exercises. Give me a call and I’d love to talk you through some options that you could do yourself.
Kind regards
Simon Batty
Say more?
There are plenty of options Colette, and in many ways, the less equipment the better. Group size and learning outcomes are the main factors to consider, so if you can post more about that then great. You also need to work within the constraints of your own safety expertise – which shouldn’t scare you off! I’m really happy to share materials as most outdoor experiential excercises are in the public domain or based on similar principles – its what you choose and how you use it that counts.
Contact me direct if you would like.
Why?
I don’t want to insult anyones’ intelligence but what is the motive for “outdoor” exercises? I have found that there are many excellent practical exercises that have most of the benefits of outdoor exercises but can be run indoors where the weather isn’t a factor…niether is physical strength, endurance, machismo….you can see where I’m going.
I ran a conference where we had a range of four inclusive exercises for 45 people, all of which took place in the rooms of the venue (including the squash court) and we all reached lunch dry, comfortable and enervated.
Outdoor exercises
I would be asking the company why they wanted an outdoor exercise. What is their previous experience and what do they expect to get from this. I would then be asking about their current business issues so that I could select an exercise that raised awareness of and led to constructive discussion about these issues. I think that to be really worthwhile outdoor exercises need to be creatively designed, challenging intellectually (but not necessarily physically) engaging and related to peoples experience. I can provide examples though would need to discuss to really help. I am happy to speak to Colette if required.
Outdoor Exercises
An outdoor session can literally bring a breath of fresh air to jaded conference delegates. No need for anything too strenuous, but a complete break and change of scene from the conference room can work wonders.
Ideas depend on number of delegates and time available. Happy to discuss direct if you wish.
Regards – John