For those people that don't know, Sandhurst is the place where the Army trains up it's officers. Every year they turn out a whole bunch of Second Lieutentants.
Why, I hear you ask, was Dazza at a military academy? Had he joined the Army? Has he gone utterly stark raving mad?
I'm afraid not - although the image of me in uniform is quite an entertaining one! No, I've volunteered for a management development programme, which is loosely based on the training that the Army gives its new officers. I say loosely because there's no (compulsory) running, jumping, climbing of trees spending the night in holes in the woods, shooting stuff and being shouted at. there is, however a lot of stuff about leadership.
I had a superb time. Questionable sheets, communal showers and horses in the corridors aside (it is the army after all) it was absolutely fantastic and, quite frankly, if anyone gets the opportunity to go on the courses run by IDG then jump to it!
I was surprised at the accomodation - not sure what I was expecting - dormintories or at least shared rooms, but we each had a decent sized room to ourselves. They weren't amazingly clean and they were far from luxurious, but then it was never gonna be the Ritz. Amazingly, some people actually complained.
There were several of those activites where you have to raise flag poles, transfer ping-pong balls from A to B, cross an imaginary river and the like, but it was very different to those naff team building days that you get sent on. Each meember of the team gets to take on the leadership role and the team and the leader are properly reviewed at the end of it. I learned loads about myself in just 3 days.
It didn't really concern me - but I did wonder exactly how I would function, not only working, but opening up to and being frank with a team of people that I've never ever met before, but it was fine. in fact it was better than fine. One of the comments that I made at the end of the course was that although I've worked with the guys in my team in the office for around 3 years now and work together and get on well, the bond that 9 stangers formed in 3 days at Sandhurst made for a much more highly performing and closer knit team. Amazing!
Some of the guys that run the course have a military background - two of them gave us pre-dinner lectures - one about his military career and the other about how he left the military and went into a commercial environment. Now, I know a couple of coppers who did this when they retired - they found the change in culture difficult to deal with - imagine how much more of a change a soldier would experience!
I was also kinda chuffed at the end when we did a sort of one to one review session with one of our team mates - in my case a guy called Colin. Colin is several grades above me and has been a senior manager for a few years - and from what I hear a pretty good one. Anyway - during the end review he said to me that when he first met me, despite the vast difference in experience between us, he was actually quite threatened by me - apparently I'm going places. Cool.
They took a group photo of us outside the Old College - I'll post it at some point. In the meantime, there are some great pictures of Sandhurst on their website right here.
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