California Wilderness Trainings ~ FAQs

This FAQ link is provided to answer some of the common questions concerning our consulting and training services. If you have a question and it isn’t addressed on this page, please contact us at info@cwt-Inc.com.

Where is your main base of operation?

We operate out of southern California, however we can design a course for literally anywhere in the world. We have constructed challenge courses throughout the US, Europe, South America and Southeast Asia.

Is most of your work done outdoors?

While we are primarily a training and consulting firm that offers outdoor experiential learning programs, we often combine that with a strategic planning component (visioning for success) that takes place indoors. Experiential learning is especially effective and powerful in an outdoor setting. Teams bond more rapidly in an outdoor environment, hence, our programs are more cost effective because they take less time. We call this bonding “critical alignment.” It is this phenomenon which allows for more advance learning concepts to be absorbed and practiced.

What is the advantage of combining team development with strategic planning?

The two disciplines complement one another. In order for a team to plan strategy which is effective and sustainable there must be a level of “critical alignment” among its members. This alignment is what allows them to plan “out of the box” strategies which give them a more creative and competitive edge in the marketplace. Check our team development link for more information on how the two components are combined to make the program more effective and cost efficient for our clients.

Do your programs require being in good physical shape?

No they don’t. Anyone can do these activities because our programs are not about doing the activities. That’s not the primary focus. The activities are utilized as instructional tools.

It’s a little like computer hardware and software. The computer is just the means to get into the software and use it. In this analogy the software represents the mind and the computer the body. The activities are the hardware part of our programs, the people are the software. These activities are designed to offer extraordinary opportunities to participants because they are designed to easily bring out extraordinary aspects of the participants.

This is a very common concern. There are two important aspects of your question. Many times the real concern behind this is that people don’t want to look bad in front of their peers. After all, in most work places there is a competitive environment among fellow workers, especially in front of the boss. We are aware of this. How we deal with it is to establish a non-competitive atmosphere before we do activities which could be viewed as competitive. We then set the tone so competition naturally doesn’t occur. It is replaced with team spirit, cooperation and mutual support.

The second aspect is that we approach these activities with a philosophy that declares that it’s never about the activity directly. The activities act as metaphors. They have no inherent properties. While the conceptual points behind this are difficult to apply, the experience of this is naturally and easily established. So we do not allow inter team competition to undermine the bonding, the spontaneous support that emerges among team member.