FEATURE: CORPORATE WELLBEING
The Gold of the Desert Kings game used in Eagle’s Flight’s experiential learning programmes.
Participants at a recent Eagle’s Flight showcase in Hong Kong.
is experiential learning – the merging of traditional learning methods with hands-on experience, outside of the classroom in real world situations.
“Rather than training just to give people lots of knowledge that either they don’t really want or that they don’t know how to apply, we focus first of all on building conviction on the part of the individual”, he said.
Gone are the days when small groups of staff huddled into a disused office to sit through endless PowerPoint slides on company structure and desired growth. Today much of the training takes place off-site, in large conference spaces where employees participate in activities that provide Rather than training just a metaphor for what the company is to give people lots of trying to achieve. These sessions can help manage change within organisations while encouraging critical thinking among staff.
knowledge that either they don’t really want or that they don’t know how to apply, we focus on first of all of building conviction on the part of the individual. – Andrew Thomas
Interactive games like Gold of the Desert Kings take players to a fictional desert where teams race against one another to gather the most treasure. But it’s not just an opportunity to have fun; it’s designed to improve business results at every level. While participants learn how to work together, it can also help the company identify who might be ready to take the next step up the corporate ladder – and who may not be.
Valuing the individual Eagle’s Flight regional CEO for Asia Pacific, Andrew Thomas, says one of the first steps is to make the individual worker feel he can make a meaningful contribution to the company.
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“The technical way of looking at it is you create conviction with the individual, you then give them the knowledge they need, you then look at the application of that and then you look at the results. At our core as a company, all of our approaches are experiential. It allows us to be able to go into companies and have conversations about things that people might otherwise be very defensive about.” It’s not only the general employees that Eagle’s Flight is interested in. Different teams can be parachuted in at different levels to bring harmony to a company as a whole.
“There are multiple points of entry,” explains Andrew, adding that it was essential to have every member of the company from the CEO down on board with the concept of sustained behavioural change. He says it’s down to the CEO to model the behaviour expected of employees and that without “buy-in” from everyone there’s a strong possibility that old bad habits will return once the consultants leave.