Core Values and Guiding Principles
The basis of our courses has been formed from delivering and attending training courses in an outdoors setting and realising that many of them, although fun do not have any real impact on the work environment and are essentially no more than corporate entertainment activities. These do have their place and we do run these days, usually as team reward or 'getting to know you' days, but are honest about the limited long term outcome of them.
We run all of our courses on the following guiding priciples:
Longevity of Training
We believe that when buying training courses it is done so in the belief that it will add value to the organisation. The lesson's learned on many outdoor learning courses rarely make a difference that lasts longer then a couple of weeks. Our courses look at how to implement the learning back in the work place and identify specific future events where the outcomes of the training will be used.
As part of our product we offer a further feedback session either at Mount Severn or in your place of work to revisit how the programme outcomes have been implemented. We also offer telephone coaching to answer any of those questions that come up after leaving the course.
Bespoke Course Design
Every organisation and their training needs are unique. We therefore do not have any off the shelf courses, each programme is designed in discussion with the customer and their specific needs to ensure that it is money well spent.
Outdoor Activities are Carriers for Learning, Not Solutions
Ever contacted an outdoor centre for development training and the first question asked is 'what activities would you like to do?'
We take a different approach, we like to know what you want to achieve for your organisation and select the best activities that will have the greatest impact on the outcomes of the programme.
On most of our higher level programmes, outdoor activities rarely form more than 50% of the course and are used merely to reinforce and practice learning, so that it is more easily transfered to the work environment. We recognise that simply doing an activity and having a quick review about how it is relevant to the organisation does not afford the return on investment that today's organisations are seeking.
Sustainable
Although we are very proactive about the environment and have a very robust Green policy that is applied to all courses, when designing courses sustainability is more about 'will it add value to the organisation we are working with, whilst still ensuring that Mount Severn continue to deliver courses into the future.'
Our wish is that we will provide courses that enable organisations to become highly effective and therefore not need our input, rather than creating a co-dependent relationship that ultimately is not financially sustainable.
Use of Simple, Transferable Models
Having spent a great deal of time on training courses, we know that some individuals really enjoy a strong theoretical input. However, we also know that most individuals would prefer to learn theories that are simple to understand and easily applied, but will discover greater depths of complexity within the theories once they are used with real people within a real environment. This is why we always offer follow up days..............