Outdoor Management Development July 15, 2007
Posted by Bill in : Outdoor Learning, Outdoor Management Development , add a comment
A recent post from Don out on the Harvard programme got me writing about OMD. Don and his colleagues have been on an “adventure day” and it has had a “profound” effect. This is no surprise to those of us with experience in developmental training in the outdoor education sphere.The use of outdoor learning in management and leadership training can be extremely powerful and at the service we try not to under sell it! There is a tremendous amount of research and evidence to back up the benefits of development training in the outdoors.
I feel that Outdoor based programmes can often be undervalued by HRM and Education managers an seen as “jollys”. The industry spends a lot of time trying to disprove that. Sure if you want a jolly it’s a good one but you could have an outdoor learning experience that has;
- clear process objectives dealing with real issues
- measured and specific aims and outcomes - these can focus on the human processes which underpin learning
- a range of physicality - to ensure participation in a range of activity.
- specific design - i.e. tailored for YOUR workplace
- facilitator supported reviews to encourage transferable and lifelong learning
Yes I understand that users can ask “what has this task got to do with work?” and yes its hard to make a programme entirely task-realistic however the tasks are still process real and they can act as a catalyst for personal and team reviews of approaches to real life and work.
We try to ensure there is a range of learning experiences for our pupils - why not try it for our own staff in East Lothian. An earlier post mentioned that much of the leadership training for staff in schools is in the form of conferences, meeting etc. We have an ideal environment in East Lothian and an Outdoor Service that provide opportunities for outdoor learning at all levels.The next step(or continued) for us is to try and integrate this comprehensively into learning programmes for our education staff ( we do already for some teams). We have been trying “unsuccessfully” to write in an Outdoor Learning day for our probationers for some time and I feel this would also be a useful tool. Perhaps the Harvard visit will act as a catalyst to get this moving.
