Session Synopsis - Outbound

Sharing synopsis of an outbound session we recently did for a client at Jaipur.

Client: A leading automobile brand

Audience: People across hierarchy

Group size: 80

Modality: Outbound, FaciliTraining

Location: Jaipur

Co-Facs: Sapna Jain,CFTP Vahista Anklesaria Waseem Karim

Desired Outcomes:

The broad theme being team building, client wanted elements of ownership, collaboration, synergy & change management to be brought out.

The client was also curious to understand rather than this being a one-off ‘laugh & merriment’ kind of event it could be a genesis of continuous learning journey aimed at organization growth.

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Pre-prep: This conversation started around February end when we received this enquiry. During numerous calls that ensued, what emerged was that the client was looking for serious, long-term learnings & impact. To derive this with a group of 80 in 1 day is quite difficult, so we proposed an OD intervention which could kickstart with this outbound.

We had diagnosis calls with different stakeholders to understand the organization, climate, culture & challenges. The findings from these one-on-one meets were factored in to zero down upon the learning needs.

The venue details were shared by the client based on which we began with the preps for activities. Little did we know that what initially seemed to be a fantastic option, due to weather would pose a challenge.

While I had a fair idea of what activities would be covered, I asked Sapna, my co-fac to carry some back up props as well.

On reaching the venue, I realized that banquet halls cannot accommodate activities for 80 people, the lawns & terrace couldn’t be used due to the heat. The saving grace was that the entire hotel was booked for us. We decided to use all the public areas, lobby, corridors, restaurants by breaking the group into small teams and apply the relay technique.

This system had its own set of challenges as we were only 4 facilitators & the areas couldn’t have accommodated teams of 20. This large group size also fosters non- participation by a few members. So it was necessary for me to have more number of teams with less participants per team.

Once again lady luck came to our rescue & the client allowed us to borrow members from their events team (who weren’t trainers) but seemed keen and excited ‘enthu cutlets’. Once the areas were identified, we got on to zeroing down upon the activities which we would execute. The criteria here was to have a blend of medium to low physical activities as the group was going to be engaged for the whole day so we had to ensure we are keeping them excited & challenged yet being mindful that they don’t get exhausted or don’t give up.

Then came the difficult part, training the non-trainers on the activities (I have done this in the past for a few programs). They were given the easy activities that had minimal instructions, least amount of observation needed & the props, set up etc. was easy to manage. Sapna & Vahista took them through the instructions, setup, etc. repeatedly till they were thorough with it (every one of us was awake into the dawn doing something or the other). We also got them to get familiar with the props. To make things simpler, the instructions were also written down to be put up in the designated zones. Vahista did a fab job of creating the charts while Sapna flawlessly worked on the route that each team would take (if this is not done right, the entire program can drown in the chaos if teams reach the wrong zones). We also marked the zones? with numbers & activity names.

The D Day:

As we were doing the set up, something that the client had been telling me kept ringing in my ears ‘Split the depts.. let them be in different groups’… while I had no clue who works with whom !! The task of doing this would have taken half day and that too in constricted space. I decided to do something without discussing with the client.

So when he walked in at around 09:00 in the banquet.. he found it empty! No tables, no chairs, nothing. He was surprised but glad that I had solved his biggest challenge.

After setting the context we began with a FacStories activity ‘Glad, Mad Sad’. It transitioned the group’s mood from pride to laughter to eyes moistening with tears. This also helped the team to open. This also helped us to group them as desired by the client.

The flip side of a relay is the learnings might get lost as the group’s move from one zone to another. To counter this I divided the activity into brief, execution & good amount of time for the team’s to immediately reflect & jot down their learnings on flipcharts before they could move to the next zone. I had kept myself mobile… moving across all zones (which was across 2 floors). I was also collecting & going through the charts immediately to see what kind of responses were coming up. One group once had gone astray in this so I & client sponsor spoke to them, sought clarity & suggested how they can do it better. This helped in ensuring that the learning collation was taken seriously.

My big challenge was keeping track of time as we were running behind schedule by about 45 minutes. Post lunch I reduced the activity time by 10 minutes but realized that it diluted the learnings so we went back to the original timeslot. Around the 5th round, I had to take a call whether we do all 6 activities as planned or reduce 1 activity and focus more on the group wisdom harvesting & application of learning at work. I decided to do the latter & the client too agreed to it.

We spent good 90 minutes in debriefing & the teams made presentations on how the learnings would be used back at work. The client loved the charts so much that he requested me to give it to him to be framed & put up in their office !!!

?What worked:

Deep understanding of the client needs.

Diagnosis & client contracting with absolute clarity on roles, responsibilities.

Seamless coordination between the facilitators/ instructors.

Being a resource person & being available for my team managing the zones.

Constant course check & course correction in sync with the client.

Gauging, understanding & having a sense of what all can go wrong & taking corrective actions.

Being present and mindful of participants needs (we had water bottles placed & replenished regularly so that they stayed hydrated & didn’t have to search for water).

Knowing & Trusting individual strengths and allocating responsibilities accordingly (Aces in Places).

Being authentic, vulnerable and candid yet discerning.

Learnings for me:

Carry my own portable mic. (Acoustics were having a life of their own in the hall !)

At times, some facs allowed the groups to move which caused some chaos. To keep reiterating the activity rules.

Psst. I am not sure of this write up helped you as I have tried to cram up efforts of many days in a few paras.. anyway, Happy learnings !!

Ganesh Dalvi | CPF

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