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Kokoda Movie: Video 3.31min

Corporate Treks

Corporate Leadership Programs

Corporate Leadership Programs are conducted by arrangement.

These programs are based upon the spirit of Kokoda and are without peer in the field of personal and executive leadership development.

Kokoda Executive Leadership Programs are led and facilitated by:

Colonel Mike Beckingham - former Army Colonel (Director of Plans and Analysis), graduate of the British Army Staff College and later Executive Director of the Australian Rural Leadership Program.
Major Chad Sherrin MM - former army sergeant, tracker dog expert, and Vietnam hero who was awarded the Military Medal for bravery in action against the Viet Cong.
Commodore Simon Hart - Distinguished Naval career which included command experience as Captain of HMAS Brisbane.
John Nalder - Former instructor in Disaster Management with the State Emergency Service. Specialist in Ground Search and Vertical Rescue.
Lieutenant Colonel Rowan Tracey - former career army officer (Armoured and Ordnance Corp) with command experience. Served with the Pacific Islands Regiment in Papua New Guinea. Fluent in Tok Pisin.

Corporate Leadership Programs will be designed to meet the objectives of individual companies and corporations. They are not designed as a physical 'gut-buster' - you don't have to do that with Kokoda! Although participants will be challenged by the physical nature of the trail, the emphasis of the program is centred around informed discussion on the characteristics of personal leadership, the qualities of Australian leaders during the Kokoda campaign and our leadership responsibilities in communities, corporations and our geographic region. Kokoda is about the ability of the human spirit to conquer adversity - it is regarded by many as a spiritual leadership experience.

The following program was developed for the mining company CRA. The testimonials highlight the outcomes of the program:

The Kokoda Adventure Leadership Program

"The going is agony. Alien territory, tortuous, gut-wrenching. The cloying jungle seeps into you, radiating waves of body heat. You go on automatic pilot, using the one-two shuffle that will become a monotonous tread to the end.

“Like the Diggers, you become attached to your lifesaver – the hacked-from-the-jungle, body-length stick that propels you up and staves you down. Me and my blister protector – a garden glove – become close on the ever steepening ascent to Ioribaiwa Ridge. There is a false crest, and another, and another!

“The jungle is still, the air fetid, the canopy enveloping … the Track has no reason. It shoots up the highest ridges, plummets down the deepest ravines, crosses the longest spurs. In parts it is but a foothold wide, flanked only by air and ferns. You teeter across, not daring to look down, or cling to three roots in cliffs as the pathway vanishes …

“The never-ending journey does have an end … we have followed in the footsteps of those who went before, and emerged from it with respect and awe.”

Sally MacMillan. The Sunday Telegraph

Your Team Mission!

Your team mission is to negotiate your way across the Kokoda Trail and enter the remote jungle village of Kokoda!

Along the way you will be confronted with challenges which require you to analyse situations, develop plans and review processes. Native ‘fuzzy-wuzzy’ angels will assist you – just as they did for our Diggers almost 60 years ago.

Along the way you will examine historic battle sites – and learn of the unique character of Australian leadership that so inspired our Diggers to achieve victory in the most adverse circumstances against overwhelming odds.

The Kokoda Adventure Leadership Program is not ‘experiential’ – it’s real! And the outcomes are much more powerful as a result.

“If the aim of the Kokoda Leadership Program was to develop personally; to learn more about teams and how they work, to identify personal strengths and opportunities for growth, to learn about leadership, to identify how I might instil better qualities in myself, to appreciate others, to learn and appreciate Australia’s history, to live and learn and appreciate another culture … then all of these aims, and more, have been achieved.”

Karen Dunshea, B Psych, Comalco

1942

In 1942 a battalion of lion-hearted young Australians dug in around the remote village of Isurava. They numbered approximately 450 - their average age was 18½ years – they were outnumbered by up six to one. They lacked the combat experience of their battle-hardened opponents and they were heavily out-gunned – but they were ably led. It was the same sort of leadership that had served out country so well in Gallipoli, on the Western Front, at Tobruk, and in numerous other theatres of war. It was a quality well respected by our enemies.

60 Years On!

In 1992 an industry task force was commissioned by the Federal Government to examine the quality of leadership and management in Australia. The task force found that Australian managerstoday ‘are good in functional skills (ie. computing, engineering, accounting, etc), but weak in cross functional skills (people management, communication, strategic planning, external focus)’.

The report (the Karpin Report) supported their observation by citing an OECD World Competitiveness Report which rated Australian management as ‘ineffectual’, ranking us19th out of 22 member countries.

Even if this report is half right it indicates that something has gone terribly wrong with our leadership and management training over the past 50 years – because history recordss that we were second to none back then!

The HR ‘Buzzword’ Industry

A major reason our management may be weak on personalmanagement and leadership skills is because they have not had a chance to test their abilities in a foreign environment where the challenges are real. It is also common for them not to have any knowledge of the achievements of our Diggers and the circumstances they fought under.

Management ‘educators’ have developed complex experiential training models and systems. Impressive buzzwords describe the ‘learning outcomes’ of these programs – the ‘breakthroughs’ in performance – and the methodology for achieving ‘world class results’.

Such programs are often enthusiastically embraced by Human Resource ‘theoreticians’ keen to make an impression within their organisation.

A recent report titled ‘Take Your Fad and Shove It’ (Bulletin Magazine, March 26, 1996) refers to the ‘management mantras’ and cute acronyms’ which pervade the industry.

“Most companies do not think enough about how to get the best out of their people. The question should be, ‘What do we have to do to make sure our people are a weapon?’ Fads are demoralising to people. They can’t see the pattern, except that their managers are clueless. they see managers who are not thinking and can’t explain what they are doing. People with ability just check out. They say, ‘What’s the minimum I have to do to keep my job?’ They hear the talk of MBO, TQM, vision and mission and say, ‘Bend over, here it comes again!”

And so management is left to wonder why nothing changes despite the efforts of highly priced consultancy gurus’ and the conduct of expensive management training programs.

“I have participated in and experienced many ‘experiential’ and personal growth activities in the past, pushing my emotional, physical and spiritual boundaries. However, the depth of personal learning I achieved from the Kokoda Track experience was much deeper and more meaningful than any past activity. Perhaps the length and difficulty of the track helped to deepen the level of learning and make this the experience that it was.”

Karen Dunshea, B Psych, Comalco

Executive Stretch

The Kokoda Adventure Leadership Program is unique because there is nowhere for participants to hide. The program is about breaking down personal barriers, stretching participants through situations and environments which are unfamiliar to them, have them cope withunforseen situations, learn more about theirown character, and develop into more thoughtful, resourceful and resilient leaders.

The following quote from a UK based executive search program illustrates the need for this type of program.

“Industry, business and the commercial world in general are beginning to recognise that their executives tend to live in cosy cocoons, protected against the general vicissitudes of life … they are seldom stretched by situations and environments that are, to them, unfamiliar. It is this sameness in the routine of their life that is seen as their weakness, because they can all too easily become rattled by the unexpected. This was shown when, on October 1987, the world stock market plummeted, precipitating a crash that many believe might have been minimised, though perhaps not entirely avoided, had those operating it been better able to cope with an unforseen situation; and since their position is hieratic, they can find it difficult to relate to other people when confronted with problems in common, with which none of them are familiar.”

The Kokoda Adventure Leadership Program

The notorious Kokoda Trail provides the setting for one of the most awesome physical and emotional challenges available. The legendary Kokoda campaign provides abundant examples of Australian leadership and team esprit-de-corps. And the Koiari people (of ‘fuzzy-wuzzy’ angel fame) provide the opportunity for humble, personal reflection.

The program exposes young managers to the environment where examples of Australian leadership and teamwork are the stuff of legend.

“Some of us may forget that of all the Allies it was the Australian soldiers (on the Kokoda Trail) who first broke the spell of the invincibility of the Japanese army; those of us who were in Burma have cause to remember.”

Field Marshall Sir William Slim

‘Defeat Into Victory’

During the program individuals and teams are pushed beyond their normal limits on a daily basis. They experience all the fears, doubts and worries of a normal person in an unfamiliar environment. But they draw strength from within, from each other, and from the spirit of out Diggers who fought across the Kokoda Track in the most epic campaign ever fought in defence of our country.

“Nothing stimulates teamwork as much as shared, intensely personal, group experiences.”

Colonel Larry R. Donnithorne

The West Point Way of Leadership

Participants and teams are faced with difficult challenges each day – and review performance, processes and attitudes each night. They experience the need for interdependency within their team environment and gain a practical understanding of ‘situational leadership’.

Participants learn about themselves in a way that is only possible when they are tested to their limits in a challenging and unfamiliar environment – and they learn more about their colleagues than they would after a lifetime association within their normal corporate environment.

Team bonds established last well beyond the memory of the hardships shared during the program. Witness Australian Diggers who sometimes only knew each other for a short time on the Kokoda Trail in 1942 – but who meet annually ever since to commemorate that experience.

“We have no doubt we are now invincible. We have plummeted to our worst lows and soared to our greatest heights. there is nothing physically or emotionally we cannot endure. We had set off as 34 individuals, half of us Australians and half of us Papuan villagers. when we part we are friends – an inadvisable and strong unit for whom farewells come hard. If the spirit of Kokoda is strength in adversity, courage and mateship, that spirit has been seeded in us all.”

Marian Frith

Reporter – The Canberra Times

Testimonials

Testimonials from recent participants highlight the following dimensions of the program:

Personal development, bonding and team building.
The breaking down of stereotypes.
An understanding of leadership under adversity.
A respectful sense of history, service and sacrifice.
The humbling experience of mixing with, and having to rely upon, people unaffected by modern civilisation.
The broad knowledge and exposure gained in the history, geography and culture of PNG, our closest neighbour.
An overwhelming appreciation of an unspoiled environment.
A sense of personal achievement.
The lifelong friendships established along the way.

Andrew Rosengren, Rhodes Scholar, Manager, CRA Gold Development:

‘How often in life do we really enjoy success of achieving a goal when we have done it entirely on our own? Who do we share the success with? Who appreciates the hardship that has gone into achieving the success? Who understands the depth of the emotions that we feel? To me, the Kokoda experience really highlighted the power of teams and the richness of the feeling of team success.’

‘The Kokoda experience provided an ideal environment to understand team dynamics. A group of people of diverse interests and backgrounds are thrown together to face adversity together. The success of the individual is very closely linked to the success of the team. The success of the team is dependent upon accepting individuality and difference. It is also dependent on exploiting strengths and managing the weakest link. Having clear objectives and working towards a common goal was a key element in our team’s success.’

‘I found the Kokoda experience very useful in helping me to understand my own personal strengths and weaknesses. I am a highly competitive person who places very high expectations on myself and to a certain extent on other people. Whilst I believe that I am understanding of peoples differences and their relative strengths and weaknesses, I have great difficulty coping with people who do not appear to want to realise their potential. Motivating and exciting people to realise their fullest peotential is one of my greates challenges of leadership.’

Susie Cresswell, B Com, Accountant, Hammersley Iron, WA:

‘To say I gained a sense of achievement from completing the Kokoda Trail would be an enormous understatement. I have not only learnt important life skills, I have also had an opportunity to identify my weaknesses and establish in my own mind what qualities I value in a leader. In the process I have made some life long friends. Regardless of what I write in this report, it will never truly capture this experience.’

Michael Cox, B Eng, Engineer, Minenco Pty Limited:

‘To say that this was the hardest, most prolonged physical and mental challenge I have ever undertaken is a bit of an understatement.

‘As for lessons in leadership .....I was dubious that evening, and through much of the program as to what exactly we CRA people were learning that might help us in our day to day work. However, as the journey was completed, the many small pieces that had been put in front of us came together to complete a picture of team membership, team leadership and self leadership that is simple, infallible and universal.

‘Simply put, the Kokoda experience is one I will never forget and which has truly enlightened me in many ways. I believe I am a stronger and more determined person as a result.’

Xiaoling Liu, Comalco Research & Tehnology:

“The trek provided an excellent opportunity for me to learn more about Australian culture. I was not particularly interested in the military significance of the Kokoda Trail before the departure. However, Charlie’s encyclopaedic knowledge of the Kokoda campaign and actual experience of the hardships have changed me. The heroic history should be more publicised and the Kokoda spirit widely promoted. The Diggers fought inch by inch to fulfil their duty as soldiers. How much of this spirit is still alive in modern society? What is the main personal drive for good performance, promotion or fulfilling one’s professional duty? Where is the balance between contribution and reward? I will certainly remind myself of these questions more frequently and strive to fulfil my duty as an ordinary citizen.

“I feel the barriers between different cultures and races were insignificant in the bush and in the face of adversity. However, I did observe a difference between myself and some other team members. I had a more serious approach to the trek (Re my argument that we came to train and test ourselves, not for a holiday). It was interesting to analyse my own thinking process. Initially, I was frustrated with others’ relaxed approach to the trek, gradually, as I focused on the outcome of the team and outstanding performance of others, my thinking changed:

“In the end, it is the outcome not the attitude that counts. I should examine my own approach. If it does not fit into the style of most staff members, or respected by them, then I have to change my approach to get the best team results. Having fun may be an important part of daily work which I must respect.”

Karen Dunshea, B Psych, Comalco:

I think the following excerpt from my diary conveys some of the difficulties I experienced and the manner in which I dealt with them. It was the walk from Isurava, up to find the crashed Japanese Zero:

“I was doing really well I thought. Keeping up, close to the front. No packs, so lighter work than normal. The guide going ahead, then a couple of the “A team” (the others) then me. Then we turned off the track and started to cut a path through the jungle. Up up up. Up up up. Very steep. Clawing at mud and tree roots. Grabbing onto slender young tree trunks - their size belying their strength! Up up up. Puff puff puff. Up up up. God I was finding this increasingly difficult. Keep going keep going. Up up up. Finally, I came across a solid tree perched at the edge of a small flat piece of ground about a metre square. Exhausted and almost in tears, I leant my back against the tree. Xiaoling stopped and I told her she could go on - I just needed to get my breath. Then, so exhausted, I burst into tears. Quiet tears. Tired tears. A couple of the others came along and I told them to keep going, that I was just getting my breath. Terry stayed, so did Christine. Charlie came along. He checked under my hat to see if I was still awake!! (Hahaha - a remnant from me flaking out at every stop in the first two days). “What’s wrong mate?” he asks. Into tears again. He gave me a quick hug and I explained that I was “still having fun”. That must sound so funny burbling out through a teary voice! I wasn’t upset or miserable. I was just so tired. Charlie said I didn’t have to continue on up, and I could wait there until the others returned. What a silly idea! I told him of course I would keep on going, otherwise I may as well have stayed in the village! I soon found out that I was 7/8th of the way up when I stopped. Still, I had desperately needed the rest.”

“As a team member, an individual needs to feel that they can contribute and that their contribution is meaningful and acknowledged. Although I would see this encouragement as primarily a task of a leader, the individual is also responsible to some degree for their own involvement in a process. The Kokoda experience helped to develop and reinforce the notion of individual responsibility in the team - even when I am tired and miserable (or there is some other constraint), I can still contribute and I can change the level of my involvement in what I am doing. I thought that this trek, while developing teamwork and leadership skills, also helped to develop and reinforce the notion of individual responsibility for how you choose to act and what you choose to think. Individual responsibility for one’s choices and actions is something often missing from today’s world.

“A thoroughly rich learning opportunity which I would grasp with both hands if it were presented to me again......The program ought to be continued .... The concept has enormous potential in developing people as individuals, as leaders, and as team members”.

David Mellows, Stratum 111, Mine Manager:

“The teamwork along the Track developed out of need and adversity. Our team bonded and supported one another, we were dealing with reality, not some time limited task manufactured to put people under stress for training purposes.

“We formed our own team processes and debriefed our experiences in order to improve. Charlie threw in a few curly tasks when we got our act together just to keep us on the boil, the stretcher exercise was one and carrying additional loads was another.

“The experience will have a lasting effect on me. My understanding of adversity and view on values in life have changed. I would hope this will have a positive effect on my performance as a team leader and member”.

Christine McKenna, Coal & Allied:

“I feel that our team has achieved a great deal in the journey along the track. This journey included a lot of opportunities for personal growth and development through the stimulus of historical, cultural, physical and team/leadership understanding. We have also formed a team that has characteristics of trust and respect in each others individual abilities at its core. Teams like ours are not developed easily without the catalyst of real hardship. We would assist each other quickly if required at any stage. This may well benefit CRA in the future.

“The greatest benefit I received from this trip was an insight into myself. When surrounded by people who have no preconceptions of who you are and what you are like, the reaction from them when you are required to achieve together under difficult circumstances provides a mirror on yourself. Under these conditions you each see what is real and what is perceived about people.

“I have also found some weaknesses to be wary of. I need to learn to draw on quieter people to gain their real views before I go ahead with anything and label it a team effort. I also need to give greater consideration to the process of completing a task possible using a checklist type approach to ensure that every time, all required stages are completed. Further I will not shortcut getting to know someone by categorising them again. Categories don’t tell you what the persons attributes really are, they just tell you what your assumptions make them out to be. Incorrect assumptions limits your ability to see the real person with all their quirky individuality.

“In conclusion, I am glad that I was included in this trek at age 25 as I now have the rest of my life to complete the trains of thought and achieve the goals that I have set myself as a result of this trip. This ability of Kokoda and the team/leadership program to provide the conditions for people to question deeply, and the examples to go some way towards answering these questions, is very powerful. If harnessed effectively CRA could benefit enormously from the personal development of its selected employees and from the growth of teams of people across the organisation who would ford rivers and climb mountains for each other.”

Peter Veitch, Argyle Diamonds, Kununurra, WA

“The provision of military history throughout the trek provided a basis to motivate myself when the times were difficult. Having an understanding of the conditions that the soldiers fought under and the limits that they were able to push themselves provided a basis to compare my own hardship. My comparison centred on the fact that I am young and fit, as were the soldiers, and therefore I would be capable of surviving a similar level of hardship. When this comparison was done, the hardship that I was suffering at the time really was insignificant compared to what the soldiers endured. This realisation put my situation into perspective and reduced my perceived difficulty in completing the trek or carrying extra weight. I have used this learning to put my work and personal environment into perspective and to knock down barriers that I may raise when times get difficult.

“By being part of 7 CRA employees that did not previously know each other, we were forced to quickly pull together to achieve our goals. Over the first few days while we were being pushed to extreme levels were very cohesive and operated effectively. However when the pressure dropped, individual needs surfaced which reduced the team’s cohesiveness as well as my sense of belonging. These events highlighted the need to balance individual requirements within the team environment and most of all to concentrate on communication”.

Greg Davies, B Eng, Minenco Pty Limited:

‘Kokoda is not aimed at any one particular company and is based on tried and true, simple but realistic and practical leadership theories.

The Kokoda Leadership Program was an incredibly powerful experience. I have found it difficult to put into works all the thoughts and feelings I experienced before, during and after the trek. I didn’t know if I was affected by Kokoda as much as other trekkers; I didn’t vomit, collapse, wet my pants or suffer from fungal foot. .In addition to the enrichment in terms of people I have met, the experiences with a foreign culture and environment and the satisfaction of meeting a physical and mental challenge, I have left Kokoda with a clearer picture of who I am, the extent of my abilities, what I do well in terms of teamwork and leadership skills and a clear and positive path for improvement.’

Esprit de Corp

In commenting of the special quality of the Australian 39th Battalion at Isurava, the official War Historian, Dudley McCarthy wrote:

“Esprit de Corps is a spirit which pervades a team, a group, an organisation. It exists wherever human beings confront and overcome adversity together. The greater the adversity - the stronger the bond. Esprit de Corps is evident in military units, in sporting teams and in organisations with proud traditions.

“Although possessing no permanent site, having neither roof nor walls, no unchanging form, it yet becomes home for those who serve in it. Away from it, each of its members can revert to being homeless individuals, lost, uncertain, without proper identity. Because of this it calls to life in a man, rounded into fullness through shared battle, suffering and death, each other will always feel some sense of brotherhood for each other man of his battalion. Through this thing the strong lift the weak to efforts and achievements beyond their own strength and their conscious wills, and the dependence of the weak gives greater strength and endurance to the strong. For every individual human part of this battalion who is killed, this thing changes something in those who survive and calls to life something new that never was there before.”

The challenge for today’s leaders is to inspire their team or organisation to develop and maintain a spirit of high morale.

This is what the Kokoda Adventure Leadership Program is all about!