A comparison of a competitive and non‐competitive outdoor management development programme

This paper compares the immediate impact of an outdoor management development programme run in two different formats. The original OMD programme which was evaluated had a competitive format with individuals participating in teams on a variety of outdoor challenges in order to develop personal team‐working skills. On each activity the teams were awarded points depending on how successful they were judged to have been, so that one team “won” and one team “lost”. Evaluation of this programme indicated that those in losing teams felt they had learned less from the experience compared to those in winning teams. In consequence, the format of the programme was changed so that the competition between the teams was abolished. Evaluation results indicated a much more positive impact for all participants. These results are discussed in terms of how the different programme formats encouraged different types of review processes.