Just back from the 3-day Outbound Learning Program at Pegasus. There were 14 other Project Managers along with me and I was the co-ordinator.
Some key points for those who are interested in knowing how useful this experience has been:
1. Right from the beginning I have been a strong believer of experiential learning and this 3-day trip reinforced that belief
2. Value for Money: Though I don't know the exact amount of money spent, it was value for money. As a Training Consultant many times I had seen that companies get concerned about the budget but it is really worth it.
3. Faculty: My previous interaction with military personnel had been very limited and the only impression I had about them is that they are highly disciplined. But after seeing what Col. Gowri Sanker achieved at Sierra, I was very impressed. At Pegasus too, two of the three facilitators were from the Armed Forces. My impression about them is that they are highly disciplined and have lots of experience in handling people, very good facilitators, though I felt that their body of knowledge is slightly limited but it never came in the way of learning.
4. Participants: It's the participants who make the difference. How open are you to show what you are without restraining to do only that others want to see? The openness of the participants and their readiness to risk failure and take feedback is a critical factor. All the 14 others who were there with me were extremely open and did what they would do everyday. The state of mind of different participants can be categorised into:
1. I am very good, I'm already implementing what I learnt earlier. I face certain issues because others are not right and they may not be implementing what they have learnt.
2. I think I'm OK but I need to know how I make others also good. I have questions for which I will try to get answers from this program
3. I don't think I'm doing the right things but I am able to manage things as I'm good at my work. What I would do is, I will sit silently and then try to learn as much as possible
4. I have learnt lot of things but I need to revisit everything to reinforce. My concern is more about others and I hope they would learn what I learnt earlier
and mine was
5. I have never been with a group like this and I'm going as a participant, what should I be doing - Should I give chance to others, Should I act naturally and check where do I stand as an individual, should I help others. May be I would be myself and see what happens and make a note of where I need to work upon and also utilize this opportunity to understand how powerful the experiential learning process would be, what's the business model, is it sustainable and finally is there something that can be further improvised.
Overall it was a fantastic experience. Some of the activities that we went through include - Dynamic Obstacle course, Rappelling, raft building etc. Everyone participated, enjoyed and learnt a lot about themselves and the kind of challenges they may face if they have strong team members
One thing is very clear - each individual is unique and there is no single solution for development, instead put the individual in a situation and allow himself to experience where does he stand and possible learn from others. Follow up is the critical thing and over the next month I'm going to work on this. I'm very excited as this would be very good project in the Leadership Development domain. I would even look at the whole thing from the ROI point of view and note down the findings in this blog.
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