COMMUNICATION THRU ADVENTURE

COMMUNICATION FOR INNOVATION

How do you develop a competitive edge? Ask the man who wrote the textbook on the topic for South African universities and corporates - The Competitive Edge, by science and technology writer Graeme Addison.

Among emerging markets, South Africa has a name for its unique spirit of innovativeness. We have created any number of new technologies and processes through effective teamwork. Think of the SALT Telescope (the southern hemisphere’s largest), Sasol’s oil-from-coal process, our amazing deep-mining for gold (now down to 4km below surface), and the development of cellphone networks for Africa. But how did these teams achieve breakthroughs, and can we as a nation sustain our creativity? Can your company come up with new ideas and roll them out for market success?

In the 3-volume Edge Series of books on the history and achievements of South African innovation, Graeme Addison revealed that the country's problem is that its people can't innovate - they can and do - but very often the new ideas, products and processes fall into what is called the "Chasm". The chasms is where good ideas fail to mature into great marketable products. This can happen for many reasons, but basically, to avoid the chasm, innovative companies need to -

• Understand how to cultivate a creative, problem-solving attitude

• Allow people to explore possibilities in product development and marketing

• Encourage the development of collaborative, open-ended sharing of ideas

• Allow standard rules to be bent or broken, and examine the outcomes

• All of this exposes the organisation to risk - but without risk there is no reward!

• And that's why adventure experiences matter - they involve risk with reward.

Any company can innovate. You HAVE to innovate in order to beat the competition. If they are coming up with new products or services, so must you - and do it better than they can. This takes a particular mindset in the people entrusted with product development and in management, which needs to allow space for creativity, experimentation, and even failure.

Communication through adventure lets people experience what it is like to take risks and succeed. Even if they fail at an adventure task, the nature of the training is that they analyse why they failed. Reflecting on the lessons of the challenge, both individually and in groups, is key to attacking problems successfully the next time. Confidence breeds success. It is life-affirming and has a longterm positive effect on personal confidence and group cohesiveness.  But nothing happens without communication. At every step along the way, people must talk, convey meaning in gestures and body language, and provide support and understanding for their fellows. Our adventure based learning imparts techniques of communication that will serve your company well in the workplace. Much of what we do with teams is simple, yet simplicity and common sense are sometimes hard to come by in the workplace. By talking, analysing and reconfiguring their approach to challenges, people learn to cut through the deadwood to see things freshly and act with new insight.

The adventure training is for all who are involved in building an innovative company culture, from directors and managers to staff and technicians. Usually, thinking is departmentalised, and the best ideas are isolated in structures that are not easy to break through. The first and most important principle of communication is that people need to break out of the given procedures and silo thinking of the past. With us, your people learn by doing. They encounter challenges that teach the value of collaboration across status and culture barriers.

Successful innovations don't just happen. They arise from multifunctional, many-headed teams that get the best out of the human diversity in your organisation. South Africans are good at innovating - you just have to make it happen by starting the process. Nothing gets this point across more effectively than an adventure challenge where people can put aside their workaday roles and attack problems together.