Military Style Leadership and Management Training-The Mill
“The Mill” is the name we give to our team training days designed especially to place teams under pressure, building confidence through experience. Without pressure and shared experience of challenge, the potential of team members remains untapped, with individuals being unaware of how much they are capable of. By going through “The Mill”, team members have a collective challenge that becomes a resource to pull on for future achievement and is a key feature of how we change perspective and create positive changes within the workplace.
“The Mill” Training Days consist of Intellectual, Emotional and Physical challenges. These include; individual and group formal timed planning tasks with presentations and full debriefs, individual and team timed improvised solutions to planning tasks and physical challenges based on self-defence.
A typical literary would look like this – Each training program is designed especially for the requirements of that specific group but as a guide the day is split into 3 sections.
The Aim of the training is ‘The ENHANCEMENT of Leadership and Management skills through Physical, Emotional and Intellectual CHALLENGE”
PHYSICAL – 2 hours
In this training section, our training team takes the delegates through physical training based on self-defence. The purpose of the training is experience PRINCIPLES.
These principles are then referred to throughout the training day. The delegates experience awareness, observation, orientation, decision and action.
This training can be done standing and moving around and additionally seated at tables to provide a real life scenario which is unique. If the location is similar to the Rovers conference room this is ideal. If our location is more ‘outdoorsy’ the standing work is preferred. We can do either.
EMOTIONAL – 2 hours
We carry the PRINCIPLES into the realm of Leadership and Management working on Selection and Maintenance of the Aim. This includes case studies such as Churchill’s Mers al-Kebir decision and other examples from military leadership. In addition, delegates will work through tasks to understand how WILL is created in teams in order to maintain the aim day after day. A fundamental part of this element is how PRIDE is used to maintain morale. In business parlance this is about understanding CULTURE but the important distinction is how we arrive at what culture we wish to create in a given environment and how we then do it in reality. For example, the culture needed in a creative industry is not necessarily the same as in a process driven insurance firm. By understanding PRINCIPLES we can do either. Delegates will apply this to their own firms. A typical task is for each delegate to create their company ‘cap badge’. Not a logo or brand but a symbol that defines the culture they want to create. This is not easy but with the principles we outline a good solution can be reached.
INTELLECTUAL – 2 and a half hours
The task for the Intellectual section is around Planning and strategic thinking. We break down the delegates into teams. Each team is given a target pack comprising Intelligence reports, maps, aerial photographs, equipment capabilities and so on. We brief the teams on the mission, teach the principles they need to conform to and let them plan the mission and brief it back. A typical scenario would be an attack on the enemy forces in Manchester Town Hall to retake the building from the Yorkshire Republican Army. This scenario and mission changes with each location and is written specially to engage that audience.
When we add the introduction and summary times, the day runs typically to 7 hours. All the above can be tweaked. For example, we are doing a lower level course soon where each phase has a physical component then a task after. This depends on what we want to achieve and is a conversation between us and the client to design something special for them.
We can also theme the day depending on the focus the client needs – we have done leadership and management with a culture building focus, with a creative industry focus and so on.
The Physical Aspect:
The method we use for the physical aspect is called ‘Keysi’. We go little by little for the clients – it doesn’t take much to increase pressure! Bearing in mind however that the training is suitable for all – we do not expect everyone to be fit, far from it. The level we use is what is appropriate for the group and each individual.
