Welcome back to yet another exciting issue of our Challenge Series newsletter. Amid the current economic climate, it is easy to overdrive the virtual of cost prudent mindset to tip beyond being helpful. As learning is timeless and independent of the surrounding circumstances; hence we would like to showcase our latest innovative challenge to suit your corporate learning programmes. We present to you – The Rollercoaster Challenge!

Riding the roller coaster is exhilarating. The sensation of up, down, roll and spin are hard to forget. One would be able to relate these various sensations to word “CHANGES”. Amazingly, the UPs and DOWNs in any roller coaster ride are synonymous with fluctuations in the world economy. A metaphor commonly used to describe the cyclical trend of the economy is “what goes up must come down but when it is at its bottom, the only way is up.” Although the roller coaster was firstly invented to provide thrill and fun, we were able to discovery how closely the roller coaster could be related to the real world by just looking at its traveling path.

What is THE ROLLERCOASTER CHALLENGE?

In this challenge, any staff member in your organization can come together as a team to build a complete roller coaster. To keep it challenging, each building team will need to design the roller coaster to enable a ball to travel through its entire rail system by using only gravity. There are no fixed manuals or custom-built kit to stifle members’ creativity. The provided materials are plain and raw daily common items so the team would be impelled to create! Just do it yourself!

Team Development: This building process is highly kinesthetic; hence leading to deep understanding of the thought process among the team members. It further illuminates the awareness of individual behaviors and actions in their organizations in times of adversities and challenges. Sarah E. Nash who spent 26 years working in Wall Street said that in the recent three to four years, staff members can no longer stand the ‘”me” attitude. She said. “We don’t want movie stars anymore,” she added, suggesting that when smart, hard-working individuals put egos aside to work as a team, they end up creating better business. (source:Knowledge@Wharton)

Seeing Changes as the Economy: The global economy has taken a tumble like never before. It was way up there a while ago but now it has came down fast and furiously. Wouldn’t it be easy to imagine the carriages on the roller coaster are like any organization, experiencing a dip in businesses? The passengers riding should be the staff members, going through the trip together but they may be looking at different directions. We know the carriages will go up again, right? But will the staff members be ready to take on the up ride when it comes? Would they be looking in a common direction?

Building the roller coaster allows the team to discover various means to manage the inevitable factors and the dynamics of the team during the process. Making relations back some real time scenarios in the organization thus illuminating the concerns that are affecting the staff members and learning from each other; how as a team they could cope with this downturn.

Adecco's recent research revealed that leadership and the priorities of leaders change vastly depending on the state of the economy. For example, those polled stated that "generating revenue" is the most important priority both during an economic downturn and right now. In contrast, this ranks fourth in the list of priorities when the economy is booming. Instead, when the economy is growing "recruiting and retaining top talent" becomes the main focus. Interestingly, regardless of our economic state "downsizing staff" was seen to be the least important on a leader's list of priorities.

"It's clear that leadership and priorities of leaders shift as the economy shifts," said Tig Gilliam, CEO of Adecco Group North America. "Those leaders who best adapt to shifts in priorities and successfully execute against them by rallying their talent in new and oftentimes unchartered territory, are leaders who are successful in times of growth and times of uncertainty. In today's rapidly changing global economy, all leaders must have the capacity to manage through change to support their people, processes and stakeholders." (source: BNet)

Working With The Change: In all matters, being cost prudent should never be wrong, let alone the current economic climate. Not to invest is never a golden rule of economics either. Instead, any impending investment should be relevant and useful to the staff members and organization. FOCUS Adventure, poised to be your strategic learning partner would help you in making the training investment worthwhile. Consistent with our motto, “Where every moment is a challenge”, we will offer exciting venues like the Sentosa Island in Singapore, Bintan Island and Batam Island in Indonesia or Sebana Cove, Sofitel and Sibu Island in Johor, Malaysia for your learning trips and programmes without bursting your budget.

Our amiable project partners will be more than glad to hear from you and to provide valuable advice in fitting The Rollercoaster Challenge to your learning needs. We look forward to you replying to this email with your contact details and objectives. We will get back to you in lightning speed

Have a good week ahead!

Best Regards,

Melissa Lee
Assistant Project Manager (Marketing)
FOCUS Adventure Pte Ltd
1 Gunner Lane, Sentosa
Singapore 099562
Tel: (65) 6278 6560
Fax: (65) 6278 9693
Website: www.focusadventure.com