On the Wild Side: Coaching Solutions for Team Development

Create a cohesive top-tier team – and an environmental legacy.

WHO BENEFITS?

• Professionals with high level responsibility for managing and sustaining positive organizational change
• Managers undertaking broader assignments or responsibilities
• Individuals in management development programs building the knowledge base, attitudes and skills for success
• An ecologically sustainable society.

 Your positional power and program participation increases commitment to environmental stewardship and the potential to effect positive ecological impact.

We are pleased to invite your participation in a groundbreaking program designed to align team building, individual development, and organizational goals – through your hands-on role in environmental preservation.

Our staff is world class and results based. Your participation underscores corporate social responsibility advocating one of your organization’s major stakeholders: the natural environment.

PHASE ONE: Our Executive Coaches – psychologists and organizational consultants – complete 2 telephone coaching sessions with each participant prior to the 3 – 5 day retreat in the western Canadian wilderness. Coach selection is determined by your objectives, bringing together professionals with qualifications and experience in your specific development areas.

Your team’s objectives are refined through standardized assessment tools, questionnaires, self-evaluations, and individual interviews. You will chronicle past accomplishments, define the optimal environment for creating desired outcomes – at work and at home – identify the new behaviours to be achieved, and develop and implementation plan. The coaching staff works with you to provide feedback, translate objectives to measurable outcomes, and leverage group buy-in.

Assessment instruments, among others, may include the MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator ®), DiSC Classic Profile®, Stress Map®, Cross-Cultural Adaptability Inventory (CCAI™), Organizational Management System©, Emotional Intelligence Style Profile©, and other tests and exercises selected to tap specific skill sets and behavioural patterns.

You determine both program focus and specific topics for individual and group work. We’ll develop an agenda describing how we’ll help achieve both short and long-term objectives – stretch goals – in areas of work, family, wellness, and recreation.

PHASE TWO: One-on-one coaching continues throughout the 3 – 5 day experience off-site. Individual sessions help you anticipate obstacles (both business and people issues), research solutions and strategies, create a vision, position yourself within the organization, and develop the tools to create breakthrough results. You will set action steps, define accountability, and develop a follow-up plan.

Because a shift in understanding – cognitive change – is necessary to maintain behavioural change, “classroom” facilitation is keyed to the training modules you’ve targeted in your development plan. The approach is solution focused, oriented toward continual improvement rather than problems and resistance.

Now for the difference…

Team development activities support ongoing ecological research and conservation projects providing “real world” relevance and environmental awareness: ecological intelligence.

Outdoor exercises provide the experiential component to indoor seminars. Safe but significant field assignments highlight the positive contributions of diversity – simultaneously building individual strengths and collaborative initiative.

Depending on the season, weather, and ongoing research objectives, participants might assist in projects concerned with aquatic and wildlife ecology, fisheries and wildlife management, and/or forest and timber management. Typical research activities include lake and stream ecology studies (e.g., fish sampling, stream flow calculation), fish and wildlife census, bird banding, and community based fish spawning – all supervised by environmental educators, naturalists, and natural resources technicians.

Summer days are long in the north – with time in the schedule to complete independent assignments, pursue individual interests, and carry out daily reflection.

Join small groups or work one-on-one with program staff and faculty skilled in the arts and photography as well as fishing, birding, and hiking.

Journal, or use the time alone to review how far you’ve come – and where you want to go. Enlarge your perspective, explore new ideas, listen to your intuition. Reconnect with sources of inner strength and explore relationships within complex systems.

Although the bush experience affords a unique wilderness adventure, safety is paramount – and hot showers and great food are waiting at the end of the day.

Safety First: Natural resources technicians assist participants with all outdoor activities. These environmental sciences professionals have completed Standard First Aid and Basic Rescuer (CPR) certification, the Canadian Firearms Course, and Boatpro Course. A nurse practitioner remains on site throughout each program.

Evening events include informal discussions with fisheries and wildlife management officers, biologists, entomologists, First Nations elders, and storytellers.

Through our on-site videographic capabilities (or your own Participatory Videography project), team process during daily field assignments constitutes an integral part of the learning community.

PHASE THREE: After workplace re-entry, the final coaching sessions integrate “bush experience” with personal and professional realities. This step reinforces learning application to help ensure that new skills and direction are not lost to habit and daily demands.

Coaches guide participants in translating insight into behaviour, aligning talents and passions with immediate challenges. Finally, each participant presents job-related outcomes to his or her immediate supervisor.

You will receive a video chronicle of your experience; but the more important deliverables are tangible skill development, improved work/personal integration, and greater confidence in individual and team strengths.

Fees: Call for a quote. Costs are based on the number of participants, timing, venue, special needs, equipment requirements, and activities package.