Oman Sail steers Omani staff on course to success
MUSCAT: Oman Sail got an enthusiastic thumbs up from Ultra Electronics Ithra for a purpose designed leadership and development course to help Omanisation in the company and better prepare Omanis for successfully meeting the challenges of the work place.
The action packed three-day adventure course attended by eight women and 12 men from Ultra Electronics Ithra was held at Musannah Sports City and themed around the sport of sailing. It involved motivational talks; single handed and team sailing, camping out for a night at the Sawadi islands, and a great number of team building activities. Oman Sail Commercial director Matt Bridge said the course was designed to help company employees at all levels, from ground staff to management level, to better understand group dynamics in their organisation and the role they themselves played in it.
“In all the sailing and non sailing activities we focused on the five components necessary for building a winning team: communication, leadership, followership, trust and responsibility and how what they were learning could be taken back with them into the work place,” said Bridge.
Ultra Electronics Ithra’s Managing Director, Jim Bethell, said: “We see huge value in giving staff training that provides a better understanding of the group dynamics in a multi skilled and multi national organisation, and the team role each individual person can take.
The skills needed to work more effectively as a team and the skills to succeed in the work place are completely aligned, and drawing on the expertise of Oman Sail has proved extremely valuable.
Taking part in a leadership and development course of this nature is a key part of Ultra’s Omanisation commitment and contribution to the economy of the Sultanate by creating jobs for an Omani workforce.
Oman Sail had deliberately co-opted the services of the high profile British team building facilitator, Rob Andrews, to lead the course as he could share his own experience of helping to pull a large, diverse and complex team together to deliver an award winning event as sailing manager of the 2012 London Olympics. In advising that thesame principles could be used to successfully build an airport that would make Oman proud Andrews said participants could “help bring it all together” by looking at how they fitted in to the team; by understanding their own strengths and weakness and that there was no perfect model. That everyone is different and that it is the difference that allows the building of the best teams.
Participants also had the privilege of hearing a highly inspirational talk from Mohsin Al Busaidi, the first Omani and Arab to sail non-stop around the world.
“Challenging situations like those experienced by the group on the course foster stronger relationships and cohesiveness in teams. They ignite the spirit of achievement to secure performance excellence and can go a long way to reinforce corporate values and improve team communication effectiveness,” said Bridge.