Team Development - The PSA Approach

Planks and barrels, or more recently learning to play rugby, that’s team building, or is it? How many times have you heard people returning from a training course comment on a great week lots of physical exercise and a few jars at the end of each day? Is this why we send our key staff away for an expensive week in North Wales, or did we actually hope for some returns on our investment? Surely not!

Firstly lets be clear on how much can be achieved on a development course, whether it is of one, two or three days, it cannot change the world, you will still recognise your employees when they return. Development using the outdoors is strongest when linked with ongoing training. It can be used as something to kick start the course and provide a strong shared history within the group, or an exercise during the course to put in to practice theoretical skills learned.

The key to effective training is not dependant on the vehicle used but on the understanding of what the client wants, the candidate needs and critical to all of this is the link from the training back to the work place with realistic and truly measurable actions. The link back to work can often be overlooked or glossed over, but if a course is going to have any chance of delivering meaningful results this area is as important as any part of the course.

So back to the outdoors, surely all this training could be done inside, is there really a need to be outside, especially in this country. Firstly PSA do not believe that common hardship produces a team, however by providing a live experience, candidates are allowed to come up with their own solutions to situations that they experience in a condensed learning, but safe environment. When people have this opportunity to work through issues and review their own activities the outcome is much longer lasting than being informed by PowerPoint.

The last time you drove your car how much of the journey do you remember, honestly. If it was a journey you make regularly you may find that you remember getting in the car and arriving at your destination, but not much in between. You didn’t crash or drive over a queue of pedestrians at the bus stop, so there was nothing wrong with your driving, but did it improve?