The Big Team Stretch
The most natural way for a team to recalibrate is outdoors, getting grounded together and immersed in a radically wider perspective.
Recent studies confirm what humans have always known – that time outdoors is restorative to wellbeing, imagination and attention spans. Meanwhile, in our current operating environment, prolonged stress, uncertainty and blurred boundaries between work and home are taking their toll Employees are asking their organisations for relevant ways to move away from endless pressure into more expansive connection with themselves and their peers.
We take teams into the bush and oceans of Waiheke Island to recalibrate, regenerate their relationships and think afresh. Creating such opportunities for teams to connect in nature can be a powerful antidote to the strain and disconnection that is rising in the workplace.
There’s a hunger for perspectives that inspire, empower and resource people in response to the pressures of the world - perspectives that open in us a greater sense of possibility. One such perspective is the awareness that we – and our organisations - are part of something bigger, that is always evolving. It’s a way of seeing that encourages insight and important ideas to arise .
We blend 55 years of strategy, communications, innovation and leadership with embodiment, psychology and regenerative practice. We design an immersion for each team’s needs, and ground our activities in the latest neuroscience.
Stepping outdoors, we offer connection practices and ocean immersions which help each individual open to their own depths. In the grandeur and detail of the natural world they gain clearer awareness of who they are now, and how they belong (among eachother and the wider cycles of life) . These nature connection practices are proven antidotes to the goal-oriented, digitally mediated relationships of the office .
Observing and discussing the ways that everything cycles and interrelates in nature, teams start using new models and language for their working lives. We hold space for a radically new conversation about the organisation’s strategies , innovation or dynamics – Inspired by the circular , fluid, reciprocal and harmonious examples all around.
Ordinary collaboration is often distorted by trauma, disconnection and assumptions which are no longer useful. Tapping into the natural intelligence that has sustained life successfully for the last 3.8 billion years yields radically different outcomes.
How do your people feel their place and purpose in our society changing? Have they had a chance to explore this creatively? How are your people stepping up or stepping back?
As nervous systems settle from habits of fight and flight, the mind becomes reflective, noticing patterns and insights previously unseen. More important, there’s compassion for self and others. Relating from this place inside themselves, team members are better able to reveal and reconfigure dynamics in the workplace. We create conditions in which cohesion can regrow.
We work with you and a number of your stakeholders to understand the brief and the capacities of your people. We will then design immersion and follow-up conversations to suit your needs
1 to 4 days
Bush exploration and /or ocean immersion
Average levels of fitness
Get in touch to find out more: [email protected]
Hello! I’m Rosie.
When I meet a team that has slithered into an unimaginative groove, it seems entirely understandable. Constrained in the workplace, with demands growing ever more extreme; self protection and overwhelm are common themes. It only takes one team member to be in a survival state for the dynamics to contract for all. And that impacts everyone.
Stepping outdoors is a way I love to broaden the conversation - tapping the multiple intelligences of nature and our bodies. Rather than bypassing what is going on through a boozy offsite, colleagues can genuinely recalibrate outdoors as they find roots, listening, and metaphors amongst the untamed interdependence of all things. It’s from this grounded state that I’ve seen teams reach new understandings – ones that can actually lead to organisations flourishing.
I work with campaigners and cabinet ministers, corporate and philanthropic leaders, culture and media makers in this way. Let’s spend time together and see what you create.
Officially … I have an MA in Experimental Psychology from Oxford University, and am trained in creative process, The Work That Reconnects, regenerative practice and Natural Change. I’ve been strategic planning director of a large advertising network and built innovation and leadership capacity worldwide. I founded the UK’s first coaching retreat company The Big Stretch, in the Spanish mountains twenty years ago.
At the core of my coaching methodology are approaches for cultivating self trust, a systemic vision and group capacity to make meaningful shifts. Over decades I have helped hundreds of \ leaders and senior teams to change how they think, operate and feel.
Louise has been on her own lifelong journey of finding a deeper connection with life. As a ‘systems healer,’ Louise helps change makers to deal with traumas and reconnect with humanity. Through her senior roles in government, NGO’s and businesses, as well as in running her own business, she has been able to study and understand the inherent disconnects stopping us from embracing the natural flow of life.
Her work has been committed to dismantling and dissolving dominant paradigms and structures to help heal colonisation and intergenerational trauma within Aotearoa, NZ and abroad. This has led her to develop the ReRoot Fundamentals Course to help individuals and businesses develop deeper connections in their lives.
Louise likens herself to a braided river – being part indigenous to the NZ Maori tribe, Ngāi Tūhoe, as well has having Scottish, Irish, French and Italian ancestors. She knows first-hand the ancient healing powers you can find in nature and her passion lies in helping to build the next era of conscious leaders, innovators, activists and organisations.