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SCMP Reporter

A NEW management training consultancy is offering top corporate management teams intense experiences to help them communicate better and get more out of their jobs.

  One of these intense experiences involves climbing up a 20-metre pole and jumping off in a bid to grab a large ring suspended nearby.

  This leap for the golden ring - with safety features - is organised by a company called AsiaWorks.

   The type of training involved is not normal textbook stuff, and requires team members to have open minds and be able to talk on more ethereal terms than they might be used to in their normal day-to-day communication.

   The man behind AsiaWorks is Chris Gentry, who describes his firm as an experiential training company, providing programmes to enhance and enrich the quality of corporate life.

  In the past, Mr Gentry ran Alaskan Wilderness courses and was director of the Pacific Crest Outward Bound School in California.

  He has been in Hong Kong three years and was involved in Life Dynamics, a programme of personal development training seminars.

  Arc International, the company behind Life Dynamics, has figured in some controversial media coverage, which led to the company taking Next Magazine to court for defamation.

  AsiaWorks offers four types of courses in corporate and executive training, programmes designed for special interest groups, vision and goal setting in small business development and high-impact outdoor activities for life-work breakthrough training (this is where the 20-metre pole comes in).

  Three-day courses are offered with a minimum cost per day per group of about $20,000. For longer programmes, add $1,500 per person per day. The programmes are available in English, Cantonese and Mandarin.

  Mr Gentry said the courses were intended to enhance communication skills, leadership effectiveness, team vision and personnel relations.

  The course also aims to help people's problem-solving abilities, their ability to judge and take risks, and to help executives strive beyond their self-imposed limitations.

  Mr Gentry said instructors took time to talk to each member of the team before they went on the course to help make it more effective. This would also involve filling in questionnaires.

  ''As people spend so much of their time at work in their working lives it is important that they get as much out of this as possible and they feel passionately about their work and their goals or objectives,'' said Mr Gentry.



Shinning way up corporate ladder