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Newsletter: July/August 2001

New: Frequently Asked Question Page

In response to your requests, we have now developed a FAQ page on this site to answer your questions on Team Building, Coaching, and the rest of our products and services. This page will increase and change from month to month. You can reach this page by clicking here.

On January 4, 2001 we celebrated both the new millenium and the anniversary of the founding of Adventure Learning Associates. We feel we have come quite a long way in eleven years. From an original focus on rope course programming and construction, we have evolved into one of the leading providers of Experiential Training and Development. We offer an ever widening array of experiential products, programs, and consulting services (check out our new experiential golf programs), world wide. Our core business has changed over the years from being primarily activity based to a virtual client-based model focusing on the needs of small to mid-sized businesses or small business units in larger corporations. In this client-based model, we find we are offering four primary areas of service: Leadership Development, Team Development, Professional Coaching, and Action Learning Programs. Please look on this web site for more information on our four areas of service. We look forward with anticipation and passion to this upcoming year of serving new and existing clients.

Adventure Learning Associates was featured in an Article on "Trends in Experiential Training and Development" in the March 2000 issue of the Journal of Training and Development. With that in mind ,this is a good time to share our view on the top eight trends in corporate experiential learning:

• Competition; A recent search of the term "Team Building" on a majar search engine turned up no fewer than 450 vendors of Team Building Programs. This development poses great challenges for both clients and vendors of these programs. The challenge for clients is to be able to identify the vendor most able to meet their organizational needs. The challenge for the vendors is to be able to differentiate themselves from competitors of varying quality and widely differing products, programs and locations.
• Reality Based Programming; Clients are looking for programs that use everyday activities and equipment. Almost every week we get calls asking if we do cooking, golfing, wine tasting, and scavenger hunt team building programs. These programs use familiarity to teach and build the components of effective team work. In some groups we work with, as many 75% of the participants have done some sort of outdoor based team building program. Our clients are now looking for something practical, new, and effective to teach these important ideas to groups whose immediate response to the phrase team building is "been there, done that". Currently we are designing and have the capacity to offer experiential cooking, golf and scavenger hunt programs. Call us for more information. Eventually you will be able to select your program choices from a menu on our web form.
• Client Facilitators; The dominant trend in Experiential Training and Development is toward client (in-house) facilitation of programs. We design the program, train the client facilitators in the activities, and provide program management. This arrangement allows the client not to miss cultural and structural cues that outside facilitators might miss. It also allows for greater participant ownership in the outcomes.
• Results Oriented; Although we still get many requests for "Corporate Fun Day" programs, the overwhelming shift is towards program that have a direct tie in to the performance goals of the organization.
• Activity Applicability; Along with the focus on results, clients are expecting that all activities have a direct connection to the goals of the program and ultimately, the goals of the organization. No longer do we put people on the ropes course for an "experience". All activities are now custom designed with the clients input and approval.
• Complexity; The days of the Spider's Web being the solution for every problem are at an end. Clients are asking for complex problem solving, whole day activity options that duplicate the complexity and interdependence of the work environment. Until now, you had to go to Great Britain to find these kinds of activities. Adventure Learning Associates now is offering day long complex activities to its clients in the USA.
• Portability; We now have the ability to program anywhere the action really is, from the Board Room to Mountain Retreat to the Shop Floor. Our collaborative relationships allow us to bring a wide range of portable equipment to your program site. One example of this is the portable climbing mountain we use in collaboration with "Executive Edge".
• Diversity; No longer is diversity just an abstract concept or a government requirement, it's workplace reality. Our clients are looking for the ability to have diverse multi-cultural teams perform at their highest possible level. We offer programs and activities that examine and create an effective team culture that respects and uses cultural aspects from all team members.

We are now offering portable initiatives designed by Executive Edge/Virtual Adventures. These "high tech" initiatives can bring an additional level of challenge and fun to your next event. They can be shipped to your program site and include many options. Please contact us for our ever changing list of portable equipment and current prices.

2001continues to prove that Experience Based Training continues to be an effective vehicle for building team skills and achieving specific organizational outcomes. Among the highlights from last year are, the continuation of a major team training initiative with all levels of a large government agency, the further development of our Professional/Executive Coaching practice, and a return to using, building, and managing high challenge elements in some of our programs. The last year also marked a renewal of our membership in the Association for Experiential Education and our intial membership in the Association for Challenge Course Technology. Our membership in these and other professional organizations greatly enhances our ability to offer cutting edge programs to our clients. One of the fruits of membership in these groups has been the creation of a best practices document for our industry. A copy of the DEEP best practices document can be viewed here at this web site.

For over four years we have been offering personal and professional/executive coaching services as part of are overall service offerings. We developed our coaching services as a response to needs expressed by our clients for increased interpersonal effectiveness and to be able to develop strategies for goal achievement that were practical and attainable. Our coaching services are designed to help our clients pay attention to the true issues in their professional and personal lives by changing their structure of interpretation of events, rather than just focusing on our emotional reactions to perceived problems. Our coaching programs consist of clarifying interviews and discussions and then the establishment of self correcting practices that enable our clients to use their own resources to generate sustained effective responses to personal and business challenges. Please contact us at 800-551-3210 for a free initial coaching session.

For more information on Personal Coaching:
Fill out our on-line interest form to receive further information

We have been offering customized train the trainer programs to many of our clients over the last several years. In response to many requests, we are now offering a custom version of Experiential Methods and Facilitation Skills for the Internal Trainer programs at the program site of your choice. This program is designed to meet the programming needs of currently practicing internal corporate trainers. Unlike some other programs, this program is not a cookbook of activities or another high ropes course adventure session. The main objective of our program is to develop intuitive decision making and programming skills in our participants, to a degree that allows for successful integration of experiential techniques into already existing training offerings. The experiential trainer of tomorrow is not the high priced external consultant, but the internal practitioner who has the skills and confidence to use experiential learning as just another tool in the quest to achieve learning excellence. At this point, we are planning on offering only custom programs for four or more persons but may change this if the demand is high. Call us at 800-551-3210 for references from satisfied clients who have taken our Train the Experiential Trainer program.

One way to save on facilitation fees for large programs is to have Adventure Learning Associates' staff train your employees to lead and facilitate a specific program that is tailored to the needs of your organization. Depending on the length and complexity of your program we can train you and your co-workers in as little as one day. On the day of the program our staff can supervise and monitor your employees as they actually lead the program and can assist as needed. Please use our form for further information.

Please contact us at 800-551-3210 or by using our form for further information including a sample program and a proposal if desired.