Team Dynamics
Increasingly, Fortune 500 companies are mandating management training programs that include outdoor wilderness activities. American businesses have been training executives outdoors since the early '70s. Outward Bound uses nature to encourage team building. Their clients range from Pepsi to General Electric to local hospital executives. Don Hanson of Porter Memorial Hospital said, "Some of them came with an awful lot of anxiety and oftentimes when you have a problem at the hospital you have a level of anxiety. But I think they just transfer that and say ‘Well look what we did when we were together as a team up there.
Let's just figure out how to solve this problem together here.'" Outward Bound includes briefings for clients who don't feel safe or fit to climb on the mountains. And they counsel those who feel that their career could be damaged by their performance. While the Pecos River Learning Center also attracts Fortune 500 firms, their philosophy is, well, more philosophical. The center is the creation of Larry Wilson, author of the best-seller Changing The Game, The New Way To Sell. Wilson said, "We define winning as going as far as you can-using all that you've got.
"Wilson thinks leaping off cliffs and poles helps clients transcend fears and non-productive habits. Wayne Townsend of General Motors, Canada, sends people to Wilson's training. He noted, "A lot of the old things that got us where we are today no longer work, and making that kind of a shift in our culture is a very significant task. And my goal is to involve the very senior people of our organization right into a conference center like this and have that cultural change happen." Critics have claimed that the Pecos River Center doesn't tell the corporations how their employees' minds are being changed. Fundamentalists have even charged that what's really taught is theology.
Wilson disputes this charge, stating, "In our case our purpose is to help organizations change, to take advantage or be able to thrive in this global market. And in order to change they're going to have to do it quickly. It's not a one seminar or one event process. It's more like an 18-month to a three-year process. And our goal is to help people tap into their courage and creativity to be able to see that they have other options, new ways of doing things. Because whatever got us where we are is not going to take us where we have to be." Steve McCormick runs Colorado Outward Bound.
He agrees with Wilson that the type of training they offer indeed affects how people perform at work. He stated, "Our basic goal is to help a large group of creative people remind themselves continuously of the fact that they are creative, that they can work together effectively, and that they can show effective teamwork when they need to. When given a new set of challenges they already have within them the capability of responding to it well." Despite the constant stream of companies utilizing this type of training there are still many who don't believe in its effectiveness. Wilson noted, "The only way to really get you to believe it is to experience it. That is one of the advantages of this kind of learning. It's not an intellectual process, it's a intellectual, emotional, total process of new learning and breaking old patterns." Wilson pointed to an example of a woman who came to the Pecos River Facility and went on to become a vice president.
"In her particular case she went on to become a vice president for her company after she realized that she had really been holding back her potential. She felt like if she could do this, she could do anything. And what it gave her was an experience of her own power, her own courage and she realized that in all of her life that first step is what she's been holding back on. But on the other side of that step was joy and excitement and adventure and those were the things that she was really looking for." Wilson stated that his programs are based on a deep belief in human potential. He said, "We believe that people have a lot more potential than they are using and that our competitive advantage in the future from a business is going to be able to tap into people, more of their potential.
We've been training people to play the game not to lose instead of playing the game to win." Reflecting on his training programs, McCormick stated, "We think that Outward Bound is tied into very fundamental values that have always been a part of American industry. They have to do with being an effective leader, being an effective team player, they have to do with having the ability that when you sit down to solve a problem to use your best skills and the best skills of the people who are sitting around the table."
Questions for Discussion
1. Do you think the type of training provided by organizations such as the Pecos River Learning Center or Outward Bound lead to developing effective workplace teams? Explain your answer.
2. The outdoor training facilities examined in the video claim to promote teamwork in the workplace. Do you think the training as currently offered also applies to virtual teams?
3. The outdoor training facilities are designed to teach people how to work together. What elements of effective teamwork are not covered in this type of training?