Full cycle experience of Team Building programs in S.India

I have come to know today morning at 6:29 AM that I would be going to Pegasus, Bangalore along with the participants of a Leadership Program through an SMS from my Boss. It is scheduled from 3rd Jan to 6th Jan '07 and I would be back on 7th Jan morning. That's the first planned event in the New Year.

It's not that I had been dreaming about it or anything like that, but it would be definitely useful. I would get a clear idea about this institute, their business model, what factors helped them to succeed. With this program I would be kind of completing me exposure to all kinds of team building programs that happen in India.
Earlier I was part of many programs either as a coordinator or as a faculty for different types of team building programs. The differences were in terms of location types - In campus, at a Resort, in office, in a wild forest setting, at a beach location, near a water body. Majority of the programs have been at a Resort setting.

Most corporates are comfortable with conducting team building programs without any outstation travel but away from the office. In that sense Resort setting is the most easy one to sell, plan and organize, less taxing, needs less advance notice. But outstation programs offer a greater value if they have a manageable batch.

I have also started a private learning blog for the leadership program participants and asked them if they would be interested to take part. Nine of them have sent me their mail ID's. As I would be going to Pegasus with them, I would get to observe them and can ask them to post their experience, which would be very good.

Today morning I was thinking that more and more for IT companies that work from project to project, Team Building and Team Management is becoming a critical competence. If the Managers are good at handling, managing and developing teams faster, they would enjoy the fruits. Not only it would improve productivity and quality, which is what the organization wants, it would also improve the work environment and quality of life for the team members.
During the ISB application and interview process I met up with a co-applicant who is senior project manager. During the discussions I could uncover some aspects that were surprising and strengthened my beliefs about How teams need to be managed and what is going wrong currently. More about this later, for now the preparation for the New Year party Begins.

Happy New Year 2007 to "YOU" - The TIME magazine's person of Year. Cheers.