As part of the Strategic Business Negotiation and Team Building courses, students of IIM Lucknow underwent a rigorous and exciting outbound program. The program was conceptualised by Prof. Himanshu Rai and Prof. Archana Shukla as part of the course.
The basic essence of this outdoor workshop is to teach management students the concepts of conflict management and conflict resolution. This is akin to what happens in corporate training workshops and will be held for the first time in a leading B school.
Some of the following activities were conducted as part of the outbound program:
- Rappelling – climbing down a 30 foot wall using ropes and harnesses
- River crossing – crossing a distance of more than 40 feet using ropes
- Trust your team – an activity aimed at building trust among team members
- Web – a team strategy and time game to help members across a web
- Carpentry – involved making a wooden item using limited resources
- Bomb defuse – again a team strategy and resource allocation game
The students were taught how the real life lessons learnt in the exercises could be applied to the corporate context. As a manager, handling conflict, negotiation, decision making and thinking on the feet are very essential qualities. These activities aimed at inculcating these skills.
As a departure from class room learning, this was a unique experience for all students. Despite the heat and humidity, students keenly participated in teams in all the activities. There was a sense of accomplishment following each activity and it helped build a strong bond among the team members.
‘The activities actually helped you overcome your fears, realise the importance of trusting your teammates in all situations, learning to respect authority in times of crisis, making the best use of the abilities and skills of all the members of your team. These are skills which are essential for success in corporate life and we got a chance to experience all of them in one day today’, said Pankaj Bhatt one of the participants.
Such trainings are used extensively in the corporate scenario to motivate teams and to help nurture newly formed teams. However, the students of IIM Lucknow got a glimpse of this well before stepping into the corporate world. In summation, this was a unique learning initiative from the Professors and a truly exciting time for the students of IIM Lucknow.
August 12, 2009 at 10:25 AM
Great that you all could experience Outbound. Have you seen what The Pegasus institute of Excellence is doing in this field. Look into their website Pegasusinstitute.com
They have an excellent camp on the Dehradun Mussorie Roa