The Journey of the Leadership Outbreak

I previously shared with you the impact that my first Leadership Outbreak had on me. I’ve also revealed the 5 Secrets Which Make Leadership Outbreaks Successful. Ever since the first one I attended, I’ve used the concept to help leadership teams transform themselves and their businesses.

The concept behind the Leadership Outbreak is to:

1. Take teams on a journey
2. To take them out of their comfort zone
3. Give them as many first time experiences as possible

These are the first 3 factors which intertwine 6 activities which are required to facilitate conversations about topics that matter.

The Spectacular Results

Whatever the goal, the leadership outbreak is n team building intervention that creates spectacular results. I’ve shared incredible successes with leaders in different industries including:

• A CEO of a telecom leadership team used their journey to launch the transformation of the company, expanding its footprint into financial services and media.
• The leader of a struggling joint venture, where relations had frayed used the outbreak to reset and rebuild them.
• A newly appointed CEO of company that was recently acquired used the outbreak to build deep and profound relations within his team.

What Makes Leadership Outbreaks Unique

What is the fuzz I hear you say. Well the fuzz is that unlike many other team building exercises or even outward bound exercises, the purpose of the leadership outbreak is to create a context where a team can reflect, rejuvenate, fight, collaborate, co-create on their business and the collaboration that is needed to achieve their aspirations.

The difference with indoor workshops or trainings events is that whilst these events can also be impactful it most often does not produce deep behavioral shifts in people. Most people will feel stimulated through workshops however it rarely leads to personal or team transformation. Outward bound training activities are different in a way that, although people enjoy the refreshing and stimulating experience, it often lacks a direct connect with the workplace and the translation to performance improvement at the workplace is frequently missing.

A Leadership Journey offers both; it is an experience that requires physically exercise, offers intellectual stimulation and emotional richness. And at the same time it has a very strong link to the vision and results that the team needs to deliver.

The Journey 

One of the design elements of an Outbreak is to actually make a real journey from somewhere to somewhere. This serves as a metaphor for our own larger leadership and team journeys.

In this the participants are taken on a trip of several days through an inspiring landscape and stimulating cultural experiences. Along the way, the aim is to interact with the local environment and the community, learn from the world around us and wherever possible use opportunities to give back to the communities in which we live.

A big part of the value of the journey is surprise. Participants normally are not aware of the details of the journey, nor its destination. This heightens the group dynamics and increases the power of the experience, unfolding step by step, as every journey in life.

I have organised Leadership Outbreaks in some of the most beautiful parts of Asia.

In my next post I’ll cover how to cover taking people out of their comfort zones and giving them first time experiences to convert all your efforts into results that matter for the business – all while having fun! Subscribed to the blog to make sure you don’t miss out on upcoming posts on leadership outbreaks. And as always, feel free to comment below with any questions you may have.