Outward Bound Learning: A Pilgrimage for
Personal Effectiveness (Indian Experience)
A. S. Vasudevan
P. Venugopal
Abstract—The aim of this paper is to share an experience in India
that can stimulate interest among wilderness enthusiasts about
latent learning opportunities for personal growth, attitudinal change,
team building, strategic planning, and systems thinking using
Outward Bound experiences.
A sustainable future presupposes that we do not repeat
the mistakes of the past. Every human endeavor and every
opportunity of human and material investment has to be
relevant to the long term. Greater appreciation and sensitivity to the future impact of everything we do or refrain from
doing is emerging as the neo-consciousness. Critical examination of the imprints of historical memory and the fields
that influence structures and behavior fractals has been
used by mankind to discover the mysteries of nature and
how migrant tribes could adapt their lives. Such collaborative explorations between the human and nature is the key
foundation to ensure a sustainable future.
In such a backdrop, two leading institutions in management training and organization consulting from Bangalore,
the Pegasus HRD Centre and the Group for Institution
Development, have been collaborating to orient Outward
Bound Training to facilitate Outward Bound Learning. The
joint venture has set up a facility in the rural and wilderness
surroundings near Bangalore to simulate situations modeling organizational and life realities. Their design of exercises and feedback mechanisms encourage personal growth,
teamwork, leadership, and in special cases, insights into
organization development. During a short period of less than
1 year, they have evolved models and modules of Outward
Bound Learning that give importance to learning outcomes.
However, there are variations that focus on building skills to
survive in the wilderness.
Presented in this paper is the explanation of steps adopted
by these institutions, such as deep reflection, rigorous consultation on program design, and responsive listening to
specific needs of human development of client organizations.
The authors have facilitated eight programs called Outward
Bound Learning modules in collaboration with their respective teams. They are in the process of arriving at tentative
In: Watson, Alan E.; Aplet, Greg H.; Hendee, John C., comps. 2000.
Personal, societal, and ecological values of wilderness: Sixth World Wilderness Congress proceedings on research, management, and allocation, volume II;
1998 October 24–29; Bangalore, India. Proc. RMRS-P-14. Ogden, UT: U.S.
Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station.
A. S.Vasudevan, Group for Institution Development, 55-B Nanjappa Road,
Shanthinagar, Bangalore 560 027, India, e-mail: grid@blr.vsnl.net.in. P.
Venugopal, Pegasus HRD Centre, 107 P&T Colony, R. T. Nagar, Bangalore
560 032, India.
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working hypotheses about personal growth, team efforts,
and group development that can be taken further for testing
and validation by networking groups and researchers.
Pilgrimage: Wilderness Learning in
Indian Traditions ________________
During festive seasons in India, pilgrims throng to many
ancient hill temples, be it Manasarover in the Himalayan
range or the Ayyappa devotees queuing along the rain
forests of Kerala. The Hindus choose the wilderness route for
ritualistic prayer and meditation to seek salvation. Rural
folk, especially the farming communities, trek several miles
with their families carrying rations to distant places of
worship for thanksgiving and celebration. For ages, the
belief persists that physical exertion and pain, and living
together in strange settings among strangers, will help to
overcome biases, resistances, prejudices, and induce compassion, empathy, and tolerance to manage differences.
Indians have always acknowledged the teacher in nature.
In all its manifestations and dimensions there remains a
dynamism of sorts. Be it the snow-peaked or rocky, rain or
brown-forested, mountains have fascinated people of the
world. The Dravidian anthropology classified people as
(1) those who live near the sea shore, (2) those who live in the
mountain valleys, (3) those who live along the river banks
(4) those who live in farm lands and plains, and (5) those who
live in the deserts the jungles. These nature-based societies
have their own distinct cultures, temple architecture, farming practices, and festivals for celebration and developed
psychographic qualities to survive in their own settings.
Nature is psychedelic in its diversity. The oceans and the
sky, for example, look differently in the morning, at noon,
and the evenings. The moonlit night is different from the
dark, clear, or cloudy skies. The colors vary from season to
season, bringing in its wake the signals of caution, surprise,
and celebration. Tidal waves and tornadoes are devastating
while the monsoon and the gentle breezes are friendly,
healthy, and encourage procreation.
The Rural Indian is inward-looking and has always learned
through the oral traditions. Looking within they found that
human nature is as diverse and dangerous as global nature.
Feelings, emotions, beliefs, and apprehensions are as much
a part of us as the animal world. Living with and in nature,
succumbing to the vicissitudes, has helped mankind realize
the truth behind the holism of man-nature nexus.
Any pursuit to explore the unknown parts of nature
entails a certain amount of risk. The more hazardous the
pursuit the more pressure it exerts. Such pursuits expose
the good and the not-so-good alike. However much we
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succeed in hiding the ugly wedges of our character, the
handicaps and our wickedness under the veil of sophistication and politeness, our true and authentic being will come
out when we are in the wilderness.
The Indian mythology is rife with stories that abound with
examples of learning from the wilderness. When we interpret the Hindu Mythology, we notice the importance attached to learning and growth in or through wilderness. The
characters of the epics like Mahabaratha and Ramayana
learned the nuances of governance, skill of martial arts, and
the strategy of waging and winning wars by living in the
forests and being away from their kingly palaces.
Wilderness seems to have taught them balanced judgements, objectivity with empathy, compassion, and fairness.
The examples of interpersonal sensitivity, personal values,
shared vision, steadfastness of purpose, astuteness, and
managing personal pride are a true testimony of what life in
the wilderness has taught these characters in the epics. The
parents, guardians, and gurus of the heroes and heroines
were repositories of wisdom fully appreciating the value and
sustainability of experiential learning from the wilderness.
Young Krishna was sent to a wilderness school:
“Sandeepani” and Rama with his brother were consigned to
the forest under the tutelage of a Guru called Viswamitra. In
the case of “Pandavas,” 13 years of wandering in the wilderness taught them the art of winning a war. There are ample
quotations to cite their deeper learning about the differences
between knowledge, virtue, competence, and wisdom.
Genesis of the Pegasus Centre and
the GRID Society ________________
Three officers from the defense services joined hands to
give form to a shared vision. The founder, Capt S. Ravi
(Retd), a paratrooper while in service, Gp Capt P. Venugopal
(Retd), with laurels of an adventure-sport expert and mountaineering instructor, and Maj Gen V. Uberoy, who after
years of experience in defense management obtained a
Doctorate in International Affairs and created an infrastructure at Pegasus HRD Centre for career counseling and
selection into the defense services and training of police and
security personnel. Today, the Centre is a full-fledged facility for skill training in outward bound and learning about
personal growth and team building.
Set among rugged hillocks, farm fields, and a salubrious
valley, Pegasus HRD Centre (or “camp” as it is known among
village folks) has the ambience of a resort and the makings
of a school of learning. A lake with perennial water throughout the year is used for water sport experiments. The hillocks
are high enough to practice paragliding.
Concurrently, another organization in Bangalore called
the GRID society, promoted by a team of consultants in
behavior science and organization development, was searching for a partnering organization to experiment linkages of
Outward Bound Training with laboratory methods of learning. Laboratory method is also known in India as processbased learning or ‘T’ group learning.
Most of the GRID consultants are qualified through ISABS
and other Institutes such as the Tavistock Institute in
London and the NTL Institute in Bethel, Maine, U.S.A., and
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are, therefore, specialists in behavior and learning aspects of
“self” groups and organizations.
Defense Training and ‘T’ Group
Training Models _________________
World War I necessitated the development of tests that
would be administered to groups of 30 to 50 persons at a
time. Paper-and-pencil tests were meant for measurement
of intelligence and aptitude, and also for assessment of some
aspects of personality. However, psychological testing has
certain limitations such as overproductivity, lack of comprehensive coverage, overemphasis on test results, invasion of
privacy, and low validity.
World War II witnessed the development of situational
tests for personality assessment for military leadership
roles. Situational tests called for individuals to solve specific
problems by actual participation along with other members
of a group rather than hypothetical paper solutions. A
situational test forces an examinee in a situation to closely
simulate a “real life situation.”
Situation-stress tests differ from the situational tests in
that an element of anxiety is introduced into the situation.
The given interaction releases considerable dynamic forces
from each participating member and subjects the individual’s
performance to the field of social forces, testing one’s ability
and tolerance to frustration.
Three kinds of situational tests hold good even today in
training of defense personnel for group effectiveness:
1. Tests involving a leaderless group where a task is
assigned that requires cooperative efforts.
2. Leaderless group discussions where a group is assigned a topic for discussion during a specific period.
3. Tests that employ role playing to obtain a sample of
interpersonal, job-relevance behaviors.
The group-testing technique consists of a number of different leaderless group situation in which the participants
have the freedom to choose their own behavioral roles, lay
down their own priorities for action, and engage themselves
in collective group activity. Interacting freely, they bring
about modification and changes in their own and others’
behaviors based on assessment of behavior in the group
task.
Group effectiveness can be assessed at three levels:
1. Effective functioning—Ability to contribute to the common task by planning and organizing available resources.
2. Group cohesiveness—Ability of the members of the
group to relate emotionally to each other and to the task,
binding the group to achieve the stated goal.
3. Stability—Ability to withstand stress without serious
impairment to effective functioning and group cohesiveness
(the first two levels).
The group testing technique assesses an individual in the
context of an experimental group, which is submitted to a
considerable physical and mental stress. From this, one
seeks to observe and evaluate an individual’s group effectiveness, which is the individual’s total contribution to the
group and to the task. However, while group exercises, such
as the “group dynamic-obstacle course,” promote interplay
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and interaction of a group to facilitate the assessment of the
individual, they inhibit interactions at the time of testing
performance.
This approach emphasizes the need to study the static
pattern of individuals and to analyze and interpret the
dynamics of inter-relationships. The conscious appreciation
of a situation and the ability to adjust to the dynamics and
cope with the stress are observed, and feedback is given. This
widened concept of studying personality, therefore, concerns itself with a person interacting continuously within
the environmental group where that person may influence
others or be influenced by others.
Thus, if one can control the stresses to which a small group
is submitted, one can hope to provide its members opportunities for leadership and for conditions that open creative
options. From the ability of a person to take advantage of
these opportunities and to adjust to the constraining conditions, it is possible to draw tentative estimates of the person’s
ability and of the person’s creativity blocks.
In addition, simple psychological tests like the 16PF,
when administered to individual participants, facilitate
reflection on the feedback of the evaluators. Participants can
reflect into their own life patterns to capture trends in
behavior and risk taking. The presence of a trained counselor has enabled consultation to interpret the test scores with
the feedback and actual experiencing of the tests.
The principles of group evaluation have been based on the
following principles:
1. Gestalt—“An organized whole” integration of each part
inter-linked with each other and with the whole.
2. Social field theory—Inhibiting and enabling forces in
any social field that either helps or hinders development.
3. Consistency—Nature of reaction to change in situations causing stress.
4. Group development—The dynamics of members in any
group asserting their styles on task or maintenance roles.
5. Sociometry—Group and individual versus individual
preferences.
While defense training focuses on hard skills of negotiating physical obstacles, ‘T’ group or sensitivity training addresses needs of soft skills that promote reflection about
behavior of self and others’ attitudes and communication
blocks. ‘T’ group method or experiential learning was developed in the United States after the war along with the
Tavistock clinic in England to facilitate personal growth
while working in groups. The structure for learning is openended, and discussions are initiated without any fixed agenda.
The focus of interventions and feedback is more in the
process of “how” participants interact and behave than in
the contents or the knowledge that is being shared.
The dynamics in such groups help to discover strengths,
styles, and perception gaps. The data generated then-andthere in the group setting become a factor and a variable that
influence the members to learn about themselves. Experience shows that members become aware of their patterns of
behavior and of their impact on self and others. The laboratory approach offers scope for experimenting and testing
new behavior and seeks confirmation from others on their
perceived levels of satisfaction. These laboratories are generally effective with total strangers. Careful facilitation to
resolve all the residual interpersonal issues generated during
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the life of the group is an important responsibility of the
Trainer.
As has been the experience with other adventure training
participants in the West, the members begin to realize that
many of the limitations are self-imposed. The idea of Outward Bound Learning is to expand the sense of competence
through structured outward bound exercises.
Theoretical Bases for Outward
Bound Learning _________________
The bases for the design of Outward Bound Learning
modules that have been developed and tested by Pegasus/
GRID teams do not confine to their respective personal
theories. What is meant is the personal theories of Outward
Bound Training held by Pegasus and those of ‘T’ groups held
by GRID have given rise to a local theory for Outward Bound
Learning. Pegasus playing the role of the Outward Bound
coach and GRID playing the role of a mentor for learning are
now the preferred and accepted norm. Pegasus coaches and
GRID mentors are in the process of acquiring mutual skills.
The rationale for this collaboration is the belief that
whatever the facilitator/trainer expects to happen with a
participant group must have happened between them; for
example, the Team working between GRID and Pegasus is
a (sine-quo-non) for team building to happen during Outward Bound Learning. Similarly, whatever physical obstacle or wilderness terrain that is designed for participants
should have been negotiated by the facilitating team. At a
concept level, the meaning of terms used between coach and
mentor have to be commonly agreed upon, such as:
Team = A group of persons agreeing to work toward a
common goal.
Competence = Ability to compete in equal opportunity
situations.
Skills = Ability to apply relevant knowledge with speed.
Attitude = Ability to honor the sensitivities of self and
others while responding.
Personal Growth is visualized to occur during Outward
Bound Learning in sequential steps starting from the present
self-concept of the participants. This process may or may not
take place in actual life during an extended period of years.
In Outward Bound Learning, the situations are simulated to
generate the experiences essential for personal growth to
take place and, therefore, to accelerate the process of personal growth leading to personal effectiveness (fig. 1).
The concept of the adult learning cycle/experiential learning cycle developed by David Kolb and Donald Fry (U.S.A.)
suggests four steps through which the cycle of learning
continues:
1. AE—Active experimentation with the exercises and
structures offered in the Outward Bound Learning Module.
2. CE—Concrete experiencing of the actions, emotions,
and blocks while going about the tests and experiments
(treks, etc.).
3. RO—Reflective observation about the CE and the feedback received.
4. AC—Abstract conceptualization—gaining insights
and new meanings about self, ego, need for change, and
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Increased self-worth
Increase in self confidence/humility and balancing ego
Confirmation of assumptions about us
Discovering hidden potential
• The learning field is created both by the Guru and the
student.
• Search is an adventure journey into the unknown outside to discover the possibilities within one’s self.
• There must be total awareness of the boundary conditions between the facilitator and the participant, and in
maintaining the secrecy of learning within the event.
• There must be humility to own failures in the process of
learning.
Reflecting on the reasons
Feedback from (1) peers
(2) From coach and mentor
Experiencing the Outward Bound situation
Present self-concept of participant
Adult experiences
Parental tapes in childhood
Figure 1—Steps for personal growth.
discovering the thresholds one can cross with confidence
levels leading to new self worth.
The operating paradigm of the Outward Bound Learning
module is the belief that the basic aspiration of every human
is to struggle through life to “become” the person he/she
wants to be; the whole idea of blossoming (Carl Rogers) and
the formula for design is the Action Learning Cycle.
Action Learning Cycle
Concepts learned from each activity are progressively
carried on to the next exercise. In Outward Bound Learning,
learning is accompanied by fun and excitement and, therefore, is less painful. Reflection is an important step to
internalize learning from the experience of action. The
transformation is from Self 1 to Self 2—growing through the
action learning cycle which denotes personal growth.
Feedback is used as a strategy to enhance personal growth.
The purpose of the feedback is to expand self-awareness as
in the JOHARI window model seeking help of others. Importance is given to the non-judgmental nature of the feedback,
which stimulates reflection and self-discovery and increases
the willingness to change.
As for the coach and mentor team who facilitate learning
in Outward Bound Learning modules, the qualities of “Guru”
have to be imbibed and demonstrated:
• The Guru must have concern and empathy for the
wards/seekers/students (sishya).
• Both the Guru and the student are “seeking” the truth.
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Relevance of Outward Bound Learning to
People and Organizations
As the world is waking up to the next millennium, corporate management in general, and the HRD movement in
particular, are in the search for new training tools. Case
studies and management approaches are published as paperbacks to stimulate interest in bettering and hastening
change. Today one notices a great urgency to adapt anything
that is packaged with a promise for change. Outward Bound
Learning is one such package that is catching up in India.
More than ever before, the emphasis on survival has resorted to right-sizing the pyramid and creating self-managing non-hierarchical groups, moving to flatter structures.
The overwhelming importance of teamwork and teambuilding
along with individual excellence is seen as the ideal combination sought by the IT industry. The question is: How can
one be a member of a high-performing competent team
without competing with each other for individual recognition?
The demands for HRD vary with different organizations
in different sectors. With intermittent and unpredictable
changes in market environment, organizations are unable
to hold to a job description and a structure for more than
3 years. In such a fluid context and in an employment market
that is historically known for lifetime jobs and job security,
taking risks calls for special nerve and vision at the individual and the organization level. More and more, preference is for those who can operate in leaderless self-managing
teams.
Every team requires a combination of talents and skills
balanced for team success. Due to factors beyond our comprehension, each one of us posseses special tenets that lie
undiscovered. How many of us are aware of the natural ease
to become a resource mobilizer, contingency planner, quality
assurer, documentor, coordinator, and so forth, which are
not exclusively leadership traits. The simulated exercises of
the Outward Bound Learning module offer a scope for these
natural and psychographic characteristics to surface. The
case study presented later in this paper shows the design
aspects of the Outward Bound Learning module to suit the
learning agenda of the team or department who sent their
members to participate.
The relevance of Outward Bound Learning is reinforced
when we look at the specific learning objectives declared by
organizations who send their members to the modules. For
example:
Organization “X” wanted to:
1. Prepare mindsets to discover ways of working together
beyond functional and departmental boundaries and beyond
fields of specialization.
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2. Create awareness about the impact of manufacturing
cost due to unconscious factors resulting in wastage of time
and re-work.
3. Introduce the importance of multi-skilling.
4. Enable members to discover their hidden potential to
take initiative and risk, and to communicate and build a
team.
Organization “Y” wanted to:
1. Resolve the identity crisis faced by persons of a department who worked in different geographical locations with
other divisions that had their own bottom-line priorities.
2. Reduce the attempts to reinvent the wheel by improving the communication internally within a group that worked
in one location.
There are propensities creeping into organizational life
without conscious motives being visible. To manage anxiety
and to overcome work stress, people resort to games that
protect their interests. Such processes result in interpersonal conflicts and communication breakdowns due to hidden agendas. Human behavior is a complex field of contradictions and congruities. Using the ‘T’ group process
methodology, it is possible to highlight these internal unconscious processes that affect task completion of groups and
that cause cost escalation and quality erosion in an
organization.
Initially, working groups attempt to demonstrate their
effectiveness through performance. However, members experience interpersonal stress and tend to cover up conflicts.
They become “pseudo teams.” When the hidden processes of
power and politics are exposed and when the hidden potential of less articulate members surface, they start working
toward a “real team.” Such transformations of a work group
to real teams has been witnessed during Outward Bound
Learning experiences.
Another advantage of the Outward Bound Learning module is that the members are facilitated to get in touch with
their feelings and attitudinal blocks that in their daily lives
they are unable to articulate and deal with. What is ignored
and overlooked surfaces, for example: disappointment, thrill,
fear, extreme fear, confidence, hope, trust in others, faith in
God, anger, guilt, jealousy, joy, chivalry, kindness, love, and
affection.
The Outward Bound Learning module also tests the limits
of human physical and psychological endurance. The
participant’s learning is internalized through association
with outward-bound or wilderness symbols and other memorable moments with the group. A task of mountain climbing
that appeared formidable due to the towering gradient,
when negotiated by the group with aides from the coach and
later processed by the mentor, increased their sense of selfconfidence. Assumptions about one’s own limitations were
confronted at the self and group level. The weaknesses
became imaginary when they crossed over the edge of their
fears. Later, during the reflection sessions, they realized the
importance of communication, asking for help, and safety of
fellow members. Sometimes the myth of gender was exploded when they realized that sex differences are not a
variable while carrying out Outward Bound Activities.
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Limitations of Outward Bound Learning
Modules
With the sudden increase in demand for Outward Bound
Training, there is likely to be a proliferation of wilderness
treks and Outward Bound schools. Of course India offers
enormous settings for Outward Bound Training and Outward Bound Learning. Professional facilitators are limited
because the ideal combination of a facility manager, wilderness coach or instructor, and a process mentor that is needed
for personal growth and team building is a rarity. Moreover,
there is a dearth of women instructors.
Outward Bound Training programs should not be too long
because participants may experience adjustment problems
when returning home. This has been true with “T” group
participants also. From the authors’ experience the ideal
would be 3 days and 2 nights in the Outward Bound camp or
facility.
Concern for participants’ health has to be articulated. The
facilitators should have clearance from a medical practitioner and be sensitive to latest medical history, such as
fractures, allergies, and traumas. As an additional caution
participants should be requested to check their insurance
coverage.
Ethical professional practice demands that participants
and their organizations and families be adequately apprised
of the hazards and pressures of wilderness training. The
Outward Bound Learning facility manager should be totally
accountable for any mishap or accident during the process.
It is likely that holiday resorts that cater to entertainment
and leisure needs of guests will offer wilderness traininglike packages to attract customers. Organizations and HRD
managers should distinguish the merits and demerits and
choose the appropriate facility.
Outward Bound Learning facilities and exercises are
high-investment ventures, requiring the compliance of several state and central government laws, regulations, and tax
structures. Organizations need to ensure that adequate
certification and licenses have been granted to the facility by
the appropriate district and state level governance machinery.
Precautionary measures to protect the environment along
the treks, and sensitivity to the sentiments of local people, is
necessary.
Recommendations to the 6th World
Wilderness Congress ____________
Following are suggestions from the authors to the larger
professional community and research scholars:
1. Include the concerted initiatives of Outward Bound
Learning and Outward Bound Training from India for accreditation to International Standards of Wilderness
Training.
2. Include personal growth facilitation as an important
criteria for such accreditation and certification worldwide.
3. Form an international forum for Outward Bound Learning facilitator accreditation that lays down guidelines and a
code of conduct for professional practice.
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4. Initiate global networks to be linked on common Web
and e-mail for updating experiences and exchanging discoveries, and for curriculum and client feedback.
5. Collaborate with the corporate HRD professionals
around the globe to get feedback on best practices of Outward Bound Training and Outward Bound Learning.
6. Recognize an Indian Chapter for Wilderness Education
and Training with a comprehensive coverage of schedules
that honor the role of other related disciplines such as
therapy, yoga, art, and environmental audit.
7. Start an international journal that can update and
widen the knowledge base.
8. Spell out safety standards to be adhered to during
wilderness training.
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Acknowledgments ______________
The authors wish to appreciate the inputs given by their
respective teams both at the Pegasus Centre and at the
GRID Society. The impetus for this paper was given by the
Conference Secretary, Mr. Krishnan Kutty, and the Managing Director of Pegasus, Capt. Ravi. The working hypothesis
and the interest for research into the Outward Bound
Learning module is the outcome of feedback received from
client organizations such as Tata Lucent, Titan, Tata IBM,
and Wipro Mission quality. Our special thanks to Professor
John C. Hendee for the regularity of communications about
the requirements.
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