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It's Monday morning, 7 a.m. The regular company staff meeting--in the conference room-- set to commence. It's hot. Stuffy. On the table in front of the rather glazed-looking managers is the usual dozen doughnuts.
Ernest Embeeay, the assistant sales manager, is about to launch into the weekly dissertation on his own self importance.
It will, as usual, be a long week.
Meanwhile, 9,000 feet over the Loveland-Fort Collins airport, another company's staff managers are each involved in very personal stock-taking concerning the meaning of their lives. Garbed in jump suits and helmets, these managers are clinging tightly to what will, in a matter of moments, be their sole life support: a rip cord.
The door is open. Nonverbal farewells exchanged. "Okay," says the meeting coordinator. "Jump."
This will not be usual and, frankly, every one of the managers would be grateful for a long week.
Where one manager meanders down the hall trying not to spill the first cup of coffee that morning, the next may be making his or her way to a similar staff meeting free-falling through ether. The purpose of both get-togethers is to get all members of the company staff striving for the same goals in the same way. But there's been a change in thinking lately about the kind of meeting activity that can build teamwork, foster risk-taking, teach cooperation and nurture mutual respect.
Not that the standard conference room meeting is being replaced entirely. But from time to time, some companies are beginning to opt for more, well, colorful meeting fare that just might bind a staff together enough to liven up the usual. It's a new trend in business meetings that takes executives out of the office and into adventure--and perhaps teaches them to be better executives in the process.
"It gets them out of their comfort zone," says Dale Whyte, associate program director at Outward Bound's professional development section.
Welcome to the company meeting from hell!
Not cheap thrills
Indeed, so prevalent is the demand for alternative corporate meetings--adventure by day, meetings or seminars by night--that adventure brokers have structured entire programs around the idea. Costs usually depend on the program and its length, but can run from $1,000 to $1,500 a person. And corporate powers,...