Grooming adventuresome leaders
Management training is usually designed as Indoor Management Development (IMD) — and is done through classrooms, seminars, conferences or case studies. Gurus including Peter Drucker have pioneered different aspects of management and written many books.
About 40 years ago, Outdoor Management Development (OMD) evolved for training managers and teams, using outdoors for providing real experience. Courses can be tailored depending on facilities and faculties available, needs and size of group. It is activity based and can include activities such as mountaineering, rafting, trekking, etc. The military uses this effectively.
This concept has been neatly explained by Rtn Ranjan Garge of Rotary Club of Aurangabad East, D 3132, in his book on ‘OMD.’ An outdoor management expert, he is a mountaineer, environmentalist, educationist and social worker. His earlier book on mountaineering received an award from the Maharashtra government.
The book elaborates on evaluating leadership quality, problem solving ability, experimentation, learning from past experiences and transferring knowledge acquired to participants.
Rotary International lays a lot of emphasis on training of Rotarians, has developed training tools, but these are more of the IMD type. Perhaps experts such as Garge can be roped in to design special ‘OMD’ training suitable for Rotarians.
Through this book the author has opened a new window for training methods, which are explained through charts, graphs and figures.
