A New "Genesis": Genesis Outward Development Company

The task given to us by Genesis Outward Development Company training programme coach Mu Lixin seemed simple enough.

After instructing our "team" to hold our arms to our front at shoulder level, with our index fingers extended, Mu placed a slim bamboo pole on the fingers and said: "Now lower the pole down from the height of your shoulders to that of your waists."
Embarrassingly, we couldn't do it.

In fact, despite our best efforts, the pole kept creeping upwards, as if it had a mind of its own.

This was our introduction to Genesis Outward Development Company Limited's training school located on the banks of Qinglonghu (Qinglong Lake) in suburban Beijing's Fangshan District.

Our failure, Mu said, reflected our lack of teamwork.

"You can try again after your training tomorrow."

The Genesis Outward Development programme began operations in China nine years ago, but is based upon similar well-respected personal development and team-building programmes used in the United States and other countries since the 1940s. Outward development encourages individuals to confront challenges and overcome difficulties, which leads to higher individual self-esteem and better teamwork within an organization. Personal bravery, self-confidence and team unity are keys to the success of individuals and their team-mates during the training session.

Mutual trust is a necessity within any team, an idea that gets a test during Outward Development's "falling" activity, which was designed to prompt a deeper understanding of the need for unity and mutual trust within an organization.

In this exercise, individual trainees joined Mu atop a 1.5-metre-high platform and had their hands tied together. After a few reassuring words, students were required to stiffen their bodies and fall backwards into the waiting arms of their work-mates.

"Trust other people; trust that they will catch you when you fall from the platform. Remember that your task is falling straight," Mu said.

Despite Mu's instruction, some failed to stiffen their bodies and bent at the waist while falling, an instinctive reaction prompted by inexperience and fear. These were more difficult to catch than the trainees who fell as instructed. Failing to fall properly endangered the trainees and their team-mates, according to Mu. The exercise proved the importance of individual responsibility within a team framework.

"We must trust others before we start doing things. We may be hurt by others, but we should trust first."

Then we were off to our next challenge.

"My heart was beating; my legs were shaking."

This was an oft-repeated comment of those who survived Outward Development's "broken bridge" activity. In this exercise, after a ground-training session, trainees found themselves standing on a half-metre-wide "gangplank," eight metres off the ground, staring across a gap of thin air to a similar plank on the other side. The gap between the boards, in reality a matter of centimetres, seemed like metres. And even though trainees were accompanied by Mu and fitted with safety equipment and a lifeline, there was nothing on either side of the planks to keep a student from falling to the side and dangling in the air if unbalanced. Adding to the excitement was the fact that after the initial leap, the board the trainee landed upon wobbled a bit, adding to the discomfort. Then there was the matter of jumping back across the gap from this seemingly unstable platform.

Nevertheless, most of the trainees took a deep breath, retested their relationship with the safety line and, as one student put it, "proved our great potential."

Down below, fellow students shouted encouragement to comrades such as Jenny.
 "Jenny, Jenny, go, go, go," her fellows shouted.

Recharged by her workmates and reassured by Mu, Jenny overcame her fear and leaped across the gap of the broken bridge.

Afterwards, Mu said, "We meet problems, and we must work together to solve them. Often the solution to a problem is beyond our own [individual] imaginations."
The falling exercise and the broken bridge test were tough "baptisms under fire" for the Beijing This Month staff.

BTM staffers were up early the next day with limbering-up exercises beginning at 6:30 a.m. Yet no one seemed tired or sleepy.

Mu barked, "In 40 minutes every one of you 24 members should climb the 'wall' and reach the platform on top of the wall. You cannot use anything, except your bodies, to accomplish this. People who have already reached the platform cannot return downstairs to help the others. You can only help the others from up top."

The wall was formidable, about four-metres-high and slick, with nothing protruding that could be used to aid an ascent. The challenge was to get 24 team-mates up the wall within, at most, 40 minutes. The team quickly crafted a plan for scaling the wall by getting some strong persons up top as quickly as possible. Stronger, younger members of the team cooperated to push or lift the older, stronger, lighter members to the summit, and then retrieved the remainder within 25 minutes. We were tired, but proud of our team's accomplishment.

Next Mu introduced us to the difficult-to-describe "blind island" exercise.

"This is used in the MBA [master's in business administration] programme at Harvard University. Only about 30 percent of the people who attempt this succeed within the time allowed.

In this exercise, three different small groups were placed on slightly elevated cement "islands." One of the groups included "blind people." Another held people who couldn't speak, but who had a responsibility to get all the islanders to one island, if prompted. The third included people were supposed to create a protective package for a raw egg using chopsticks and paper supplied, but they were also supposed to gather people onto one island.

Unfortunately, the latter group focused on packaging their egg and ignored the second instruction to gather people to their island. Fortunately, there was an alternative.
Mu had instructed: "Any object or person who jumps or falls into the water will float to the blind island." One "non-speaking" foreign participant jumped into the water, saved the blind people, then those who could not speak organized the transfer of all to the island where the egg was being packaged.

Interestingly, Chinese people and foreigners had different understandings about what the object of the exercise was. Some focused on the simplest tasks firsts and neglected the whole.

In the end, trainees realized they must consider the whole environment they were operating in, not just the obvious tasks at hand.

The day's training taught us how to burst through what we thought were limitations.
Just as its name inferred at the start, the Genesis Outward Development course helped set the stage for a new beginning for all our BTM staff who were involved.

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Established in Beijing in 1995, the Genesis Outward Development Training School was China's first outward development training programme. There are now Outward Development branches in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Chengdu and Chongqing.
Add: Near Qinglonghu Park, Qinglong Village, Fangshan District
Tel: 8580 1700
Website: www.outward-dev.com
E-mail: beijing@outward-dev.com