Action Business Coaching: Creating Dynamic Teams
Action business coaching uses a novel outdoor experience and adventure therapy to facilitate transformation in business leaders. You can do it Mark!" Fifty feet in the air, Mark reaches tenuously for a ring, clips it to his harness. "You got this Mark!" With shaking knees, he jumps off the platform. Mark isn't the only one who is elated at the end of the exercise; the entire team has contributed to the effort as part of the Action Business Coaching.
The 1960's brought rise to Project Adventure and corporate team building exercises. Ropes courses were built in colleges and high schools by the 1970's. Later, corporations turned to adventure outings for team building retreats. A re-emergence of adventure therapy and Outward Bound style corporate trainings have lead to new business leadership coaching programs.
Rather than sit in a stuffy conference room, executives and middle managers are taking action by leaving their suits at home and going outside and forge themselves into a dynamic corporate team. At 1st glance it might look like these kinds of trainings favor the young muscular risk taker types. However, the secret to successful teamwork is not to emphasize one strength or attribute or to compete within the team. In dynamic teams, individuals work together, matching areas of need with areas of strength to achieve a common goal. business coaches
Action business coaching and adventure therapy help teams work together dynamically and effectively.
Those who feel intimidated at first quickly learn unique ways to contribute to the team. Team members, who are initially confident, may learn humility and appreciation for the diverse strengths of their team members.
In one instance, the group was trying to get over a tall wooden wall. Two men in their late 20s tried brute force, running and placing a foot on the flat wall, jumping to try to reach the top. They didn't come close to reaching the top with their hands. Next, they tried to climb on top of each other's shoulders. This didn't work either. Meanwhile, the senior member of the team was monitoring the big picture, he could see long before the young men began with their efforts that the strategy didn't have a chance. He suggested that the 2 young men form the base of the pyramid, and that other lighter individuals stand on the shoulders, and that the lightest member of the group go last.
He was neither, muscular or light, his contribution to the group was his leadership skills. The lightest member of the group went last. This woman had a very difficult task because of the trust and courage took to climb up two body lengths and stand on someone's shoulders to reach the top of the wall. As she stood on the shoulders of her coworkers they supported her emotionally as well as physically, coaching her by shouting words of encouragement from the bottom of the human pyramid.
As the group sat down to process this experience with facilitators, they were able to relate the experience to solve a problem in their organization. Each employee served a number of different roles within the company. As the company grew in size over the past 5 years, job descriptions developed, separating the leadership team from middle managers. Jack, the CFO, once ran the sales team and when the sales team lost their manager they desperately needed leadership.
The team put together a strategy for Jack to run the sales department and hire a new manager while increasing the responsibilities of the Financial Manager who he believed would be a competent CFO. Although the organization didn't have a vice president, Jack's role was changing to that description. In processing these dynamics, the growing company was able to identify a problem that resulted from the expansion of the organization. Once they did this, the solution fell into place.
The team initially struggled to solve the problem of getting over the wall. Once they discovered how to get over the wall, the solution to the problem in their organization became obvious. Matching areas of need with the unique strengths of team members became the solution to getting over the wall. Once applied to the "wall" or "barrier" they faced in the office, the solution became obvious.
Action business coaching fosters strength inherent in diverse teams by helping them mobilize dynamically as a team. This adventurous approach to problem-solving is helping corporations become more effective and efficient. When it comes to creating dynamic teams, no intervention is more effective than action business coaching.