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The Outdoor Lab

 

I recently watched a video about team development and how activities built around teamwork adds value to an organization. The EcoSeagate video (Chao, 2008) outlines the vision of CEO Bill Watkins of how he sees teamwork, comradery, and collaboration both in and out of the workplace. EcoSeagate culminates in a 4-kilometer adventure race through a course consisting of liking, climbing, traversing canyons on cables, and running (Brown, 2011, p. 274).

The application of the race and its impact on employees cannot be understated. I feel that there is value in the EcoSeagate team mainly because I have participated in outdoor experimental laboratory training activities like this and understand how it applies to greater organizational output and cohesiveness among employees. The learning provides participants with insights into their leadership and interpersonal styles (Brown, 2011, p. 274). In my experience, I found that these outdoor laboratories work as long as they are focused in content and delivery. What I mean by this is you won’t get the correct results if you shove too much and sometimes not enough into the event. For example, an outdoor training session I attended lacked the right guidance because the leader didn’t have enough help. One person to guide a group of 20 people is difficult because it forces them to try and do everything. There were occasions when someone needed individual help and it left the rest of the group to twiddle their thumbs in the meantime. The laboratory shouldn’t completely revolve around work, either. Participants should have fun and do not need to be constantly drawing parallels between the lab and the work site (Brown, 2011, p. 276). But, when there are enough people to lead the group and the topics aren’t always about the job, it becomes an amazing sight to see people working together, especially in high-performing organizations. In these situations, people are using a lot of resources to accomplish their tasks and when you spend that kind of time working with others, it can be exhausting. People need to unwind, but in a way that allows them to continue to bond with coworkers, learn to build trust with people and accomplish something that isn’t related to the everyday job. The outdoor event I attended did just that; it gave us a chance to learn and do something new and different, while at the same time it caused us to lean on each other, motivate each other and raise up one another when we accomplished something good.

I believe that an outdoor laboratory would be beneficial to my organization for many of the same reasons I already mentioned. Creating positive relationships at work is important to productivity. Having the opportunity to do this in an outdoor setting with the people I see pushing paper around the office sounds fun regardless of the intentions of the laboratory. I know from my experiences these events can bring out the best in people and help stoke their creativity. For me, it’s an opportunity to talk about something other than work, to be outside with my colleagues and practice being a follower and a leader.

References

Brown, D. R. (2011). An Experimental Approach to Organization Development. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, Inc.

Chao, M. (2008, April 26). Eco Seagate 2008. [Video file]. Retrieved https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Etwuap-_Azk&feature=emb_logo

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