The
Challenge for our product development team of more than
twenty professionals has been to create an experience that
is fun, real and relevant.
TeamEverest
is Fun!
The program carries participants off on an adventure that
indulges their senses, engages their minds and provides
them with rich enjoyment. By recreating the conference room
as an authentic Everest expedition basecamp, participants
of TeamEverest can’t help being swept up in the drama
and emotion of summitting the most challenging mountain
in the world. Participants are immersed in the Himalayan
environment with realistic multimedia effects. From chilling
80 mile per hour winds in 3D surround sound, to a vertigo
inducing fly-over of Everest itself, participants will experience
many of the same sensations experienced by those who have
blazed the trail before them.
TeamEverest is Real!
TeamEverest
is an interactive conference program that is true to the
experiences of mountain climbers who have tested themselves
in the highest and wildest places on the planet.
The program was developed in Partnership with Canada’s
most successful expedition to Everest - the Canadian Everest
Light Expedition, and is based on real-life experiences.
We’ve recreated the expedition in the conference room
by selecting from over 8000 original photographs, walkie-talkie
transmissions, and hundreds of actual stories from members
of the expedition, including Jim Elzinga – Leader
of the Expedition, and Sharon Wood – the first North
American woman to climb Mount Everest.
TeamEverest
is Relevant!
Relevant
to the challenges facing organizations today and relevant
to the challenges indivduals in organizations are facing.
Read on to see how we have created TeamEverest to be relevant
to both organizational and personal challenges.
The
Experiential Process:
-
The participants go through an experience, grasping
the circumstances, debating the issues with each other
and then making the decision together.
-
TeamEverest provides a debriefing question that allows
the participants to reflect on the experience they have
just had, evaluating their performance and the process
they used to arrive at a decision.
-
The TeamEverest Organizational Link feature then applies
what they have learned to a concrete issue facing them
in their work.
The
Organizational Link feature is the major avenue for
customizing TeamEverest to your particular needs. Each
of the questions is carefully crafted in consultation
with your business leaders so that every step the participants
take up the mountain is matched by a step towards your
business goal. For example, if an organization is working
through a major reorganization, the Organizational Link
can bring participants' attention back to the issues
the reorganization has raised: Vision, Values and Strategy;
Roles and Responsibilities; conflict and barriers to
success.
TeamEverest also deals with issues directly relating
to the success or failure of any venture.
Experiential
Learnings
- the complexities in achieving
shared vision;
- the interplay of personal goals
and the needs of the group;
- how individuals and teams respond
to “decision by proxy”;
- how individuals react to time
constraints and uncertainty;
- the benefits of recognizing and
optimizing the complementary/collective strengths of team
members;
- awareness of group dynamics and
the need to understand it;
- the role of assumptions and beliefs
in re-engineering the decision-making process;
- the challenge of “too little”
and “too much” data;
- the importance of competent,
responsible risk-taking.
-
Everest
is a very wild place; to climb it you need the strength
of a team.
-
Those
who endeavor to get to the summit at all costs, sabotage
the team.
-
In
terms of the goal, beware of both indifference and obsession.
-
Motives play a vital role in the outcome of any endeavor.
What are you seeking?
-
Where
there is no certainty or security, there must be alertness
and awareness.
-
People
are not just a means to an end; people are also an end
in themselves.
- Leaders
that lend dignity to whatever they undertake are inspirational.
-
Without
respect
and tolerance, individuals and teams cannot flourish.
-
Unity
based on respect for diversity is stronger than unity
based on conformity
-
It
is the often overlooked, nearly invisible people in an
organization that make summits possible.
-
Both
the cook and the team leader are vital to the team’s
success. Each has their role.
-
The
mountain can kill you, but it cannot harm you without
your permission.
-
Your
enemy is not the mountain; it is disappointment, resentment
and bitterness.
-
Courage
is not the absence of fear; it is choosing how to act
in the presence of fear.
-
We
are able to make wise decisions when we steer a course
between self-doubt and hubris.
-
Coming
to see the extraordinary in the ordinary helps others
become extraordinary in our presence.
Also, we are
developing an exciting follow-up tool to support and enhance
the long-term value of the TeamEverest experience to an
organization (see
Everest Online).
Can
a Metaphor Provide a Key to Organizational Transformation?
What can immersing
participants in a true-to-life metaphor accomplish? The
mountain has become a universal metaphor for the challenges
individuals and teams face in the workplace. By invoking
a metaphor we are saying the mountain is like my
workplace, but it is more than this, we are saying the mountain
is my workplace. This shift in thinking can cause
something profound to happen; boundaries collapse, connections
are made, relationships emerge, the big picture comes into
view and real innovation becomes a possibility. It’s
a place that can be imagined.
Continue
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“Other
Everest climbers who've participated in TeamEverest have told
me that TeamEverest is about as close as you can come to the
real thing. That means a lot to us as we created it to be
true-to-life; everything you see in TeamEverest was captured
under those adverse conditions, the photos, video and walkie-talkie
transmissions.
What I think participants
are left with is a deeper insight into what there is to be
gained by saying yes to challenges and what it really takes
reach their own summits. I think it's that deeper insight
that they have, that leaves them very much in awe of what
they've experienced. They've seen that yes, it is, in fact,
real.”
Jim Elzinga – TeamEverest, Team Leader - Everest
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