This week I’ve been working with a group of Future Leaders from a large financial services organisation. This is a client I particularly enjoy working with: the delegates are smart, highly motivated and keen to develop, and very nice people too. We have a particularly strong relationship with our main client contact, and we design (and refine) the programme together.
The module we run in the Lakes is very often a turning point for many in the year long programme we run, and so it proved again this week.
We’ve been at Crosthwaite Mill, one of our own venues. By any standards, the Mill is a special place and, like many such places, easy to take for granted if you work there a lot. In fact, I realised it’s been a couple of months since I last worked there as I seem to have been living in the South since Christmas, and it was good to be back.
The situation has a real wow factor – a narrow lane leads to the building and the setting is very rural and tranquil. A stream runs through the grounds and the gardens are beautiful. It’s extremely quiet, particularly at night and the only sounds you are likely to hear are the sheep, the cows and the odd farm vehicle.
It’s one of those buildings that makes delegates relax when they arrive and this week the setting has been ideal for what we’ve been wanting to achieve, which has been some inputs on leadership and coaching, and a chance to try some new approaches in a situation where it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t work out, as long as the individual takes something away from the experience.
The 3 days were pretty experiential and there wasn’t a single Powerpoint slide in sight. Sometimes we use our experiential approach, and the background of the Lakes, as an end in itself where we encourage individuals to stretch and pull themselves, and sometimes, as this week, as a means to an end. In this case, the end was the chance to explore in a practical way what it feels like to try something different in a leadership role, and get feedback from others about how it went.
We got wet every day, because that’s what happens in the Lakes but that only enhanced the experience.
Experiential works, and I believe that’s because it engages the heart and the imagination as well as the intellect. More P.G Tip to follow.