You know the drill. Your team has the ‘leave-me-alone’ professional, the loud banter king, the motherly helper and the enthusiastic go-getter.

Helping them all work together can feel almost impossible.

Perhaps that’s because of all the distractions in our modern world. We believe it’s crucial to put all those aside if you want to deliver a perfect corporate team challenge day. That means no phones. No emails. And absolutely no social media.

Nothing but each other and the beautiful outdoors. If you’re planning a corporate challenge with us, here’s how it works…

Talk first, climb later

For an optimal team challenge day, planning should start six to eight weeks in advance. That allows time for consultation, logistics and internal approvals. It also gives us time to prepare for the unexpected. That includes planning for wet weather, checking whether we can access the location and finalising the kit list.

Before anything takes place on a hillside or in a gorge, we’ll have a conversation with you. We want to know about what’s actually going on inside your team. Are people new to each other? Has something shifted? Is it about breaking ice, building trust or shaking off a stretch of high-pressure work? This insight shapes everythingand will let us build the day and activities around your team’s needs. We’ll avoid stereotypical tick-box activities and create something with value.

For example, if you want to build teamwork under pressure, rock climbing gets everyone talking. They need to plan routes, support each other and take turns leading. For improving communication, gorge walking is perfect. It naturally slows things down, so people support each other every step of the way. And if your team is new or hasn’t worked closely before, we’ll start with gentle sections to build trust before moving on to bigger challenges.

We design our activities to suit all ages and fitness levels. Whether you’re bringing older team members, recent graduates or even employees’ children, there’s space for everyone to take part. Instead of splitting people up, we focus on bringing them together, encouraging all abilities to work as one team.

Take gorge walking, for example. Not everyone needs to climb the waterfall or take on the steepest route. Some might wade, others might scramble. Gorge walking isn’t about racing, but staying connected. Or, perhaps, learning how to stay connected.

The activity is not the goal

People don’t climb just to climb. Even the professionals.

Rock climbing is actually a deeper way of understanding how someone handles pressure, trust, leadership or fear. That’s why we treat the activity as a vehicle. It carries the team through a situation that asks something of them, and their response is where the value sits.

At the start of the day, we’ll brief each group on things like safety, roles, timeframes and objectives. Then we step back. This is your team’s day, your team’s challenge. Our facilitators observe and support but don’t over-direct unless we see any safety concerns. That gives the team room to make their own moves. Often, we see leaders emerge where they weren’t expected, and planners step into action after months of staying quiet in meetings.

At the end of each activity, the team regroups. We ask what happened, what they felt and what changed. It’s a debrief, although we keep it fun at all times. It’s actually quite important. Without it, the day risks becoming just a fun memory. With it, teams leave with new knowledge to explain their behaviours, and strategies they can take back to work.

A debrief doesn’t need to be heavy or stuffy. A short, well-structured reflection works far better than a long one. For instance, we might ask what surprised someone? What would they repeat in a deadline crunch next week? What did they do so well in that silence when nobody knew what to do? How did they help their colleagues when they got stuck?

What happens after the kit goes back in the van

We hope everyone enjoys themselves on a corporate team challenge day and that those taking part are able to push themselves and accomplish things they didn’t think they could. However, from a business perspective, the most essential part of a challenge day may occur a week later in a Monday stand-up, during a tough client call or in a cross-departmental meeting.

That’s where your return on investment manifests itself.

Outdoor challenges work at building trust and resilience because they create ‘safe’ stress with controlled risks, but where decisions still matter. People get used to trying and persevering. And that’s precisely what you need from an efficient team.

Even reluctant participants get something out of the day. We hear it most often on the walk back to the bus. “I didn’t think I could do that”.

There’s no shortcut to that realisation. It happens in the mud, on the rock or in the rain. So, get your team working together outside, making sure you have the right team behind the setup and safe execution.

It all starts with a short call to Life Changing Activities. We’ll ask what matters, where your team’s at and what kind of shift you’d like to see. Then, we’ll build the perfect corporate team challenge day for your objectives, values, participants and budget. The gorge is here and waiting for you and your team. Let’s chat.