Ropes Course

Humans are social creatures. We need interaction with each other. We interact with each other in all areas of our life. We build relationships with people who we interact with. But not all relationships are equal. With some people who have great relationships with others, not so much. But the thing that any relationship hinges upon is trust. Relationships are often described by trust. We measure how strong a relationship is by how much we can trust them. The sense of trust develops naturally among a group of friends and loved ones. Perhaps it is because we choose who we want to spend our free time with and if we do not trust them, we do not spend time with them. Workplace is a different matter because you cannot always choose who you work with. Sometimes you get great coworkers, other times you cannot stand them. The issue of trust rarely ever gets addressed in the workplace. Trust is a feeling, and you are supposed to be professional and put your feelings away. This is a big opportunity that companies tend to neglect. If companies put effort into building strong teams bound by trust, maybe then they could be so much more productive and do their best work. The way people interact with each other during the Ropes Course is a great example to companies about what trust looks like.

The Ropes Course is a team building activity where you are taken through a series of different games which you participate in as a team, afterwards there are more extreme activities such as rock climbing, tight rope, catwalk, and perhaps the scariest of them all, the dive. In the first part of the event, we played ice breaker and puzzle games with a team and trying to solve a given problem as a team. Challenging courses come after everyone has gotten to ...

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... people who were holding the rope and would not let it go if I slipped, I would not have been able to climb as high as I did. You are willing to take a dive off of the high platform knowing that in the case you are not able to grab onto the handlebars, the belayer will be there to catch you.

The Ropes Course is a great metaphor and a training ground for building strong relationships. Fun opens a person up and allows him to be who he really is and accept others for who they are. It promotes a team spirit by focusing you on something outside of yourself and caring for something greater then yourself. It teaches humility, which is an essential part to building trust. Trust that gives confidence in people around you and confidence to take more risks, knowing that people who you trust, have your back. If every workplace would look like that, we could change the world.