Adventure for Thought Leadership & Strategy (AfT)

Jacek’ Skyski’ Skrzypczynski, an expert in leadership development, team coaching, and experiential learning, is a person of brimming enthusiasm and positivity towards work and life. As he ventured into the space of coaching and leadership development, he found the gap between learning and its application. He understood the cause of this gap to be the lack of experiential knowledge and resolved to bridge the gap through a professional training and coaching company. Exploring a befitting title for the company that uses experiential learning, Jacek liked the phrase ‘food for thought’. Food improves the thinking capacity, propels discoveries and innovation, yet food is not the ultimate for learning. On the other hand, experience, when accepted as a learning opportunity, becomes an adventure. With this idea, Jacek coined a name Adventure for Thought (AfT) for his firm.

As a professional training and coaching company, AfT addresses the largest challenge the organisations face today—VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous). Executives managing diverse organisations in VUCA times face heavy competition, high stress, and even burnout. “Knowing that lectures and workshops often do not improve business results, Adventure for Thought uses experiential technology — training experiences that stay long and deep with participants — which are translated into best practices in organisations.” AfT provides this training to its partners in multinational and local organisations as well as the Executive MBA program. The impact the training program leaves on leaders and organisations become apparent with the testimonial words of Mirosław Płuciennik, Production Master, Volvo Poland, “I’m very impressed with the AfT exercises. They gave me and the whole group a lot to think about. In a simple way I could translate it into my own and my company’s activities, drawing lots of conclusions.”

Adventure for Thought uses experiential technology — training experiences that stay long and deep with participants — which are translated into best practices in organisations

During AfT programs, clients are often exposed to situations out of their comfort zones on purpose to equip them with skills to manage the challenges of VUCA. For instance, to inculcate empathy in their clients, AfT takes them to work with horses or delinquent youth, where they have to use empathy and listen deeply. As a result, managers lead diverse people with increased skill and self-confidence, becoming more effective in various situations they face at work. Interestingly for the current times, this method is also used in AfT online programs.

For the better application of this technology, AfT considers the concerns of leaders and their teams at four levels– physical, emotional, mental, and so-called ‘core’. The physical level deals with the inconsistent diet, lack of rest, energy, and so on. The emotional level considers the ability to build relationships. In the mental level, the leaders’ openness in the attitude and ability to maintain a positive focus is examined. The core level deals with the leaders’ and teams’ purpose, values, vision and identity. A thorough analysis of the effectiveness at these four levels is applied to program design for each group or individual.

To bolster the experiential technology, AfT uses the video technique, where the clients encountering the experience are videotaped to see their performance for themselves and learn from such direct feedback. The core program goals of AfT are: engaging full potential of people, re-energising teams and synergising their work in organisations. The key to success is an open mindset of executives leading the organisation.

With such a distinguishing approach, the company sets itself apart in the space of training and leadership development. By means of experiential technology, Adventure for Thought brings people out of their comfort zone and makes them learn in a very practical way.