The hike in the mountains got the values to the test.

Kurt Lykke Lindved Ph.D
Culture and Development – UN
Lecturer and Writer
Honory Dutch Counsel
Former CEO in EAC
Entertainer and Event Management

Documentary from real life in “The Pyrenees Orientales”

He did not really know quite what he went to when he wanted to get going on a course and chose to go on Walk to Explore in the Pyrenees. A course with so-called protreptiske conversations.

I think the fact that I knew myself and knew what my core values were and how I perceived myself and what I stood for. For me it was important to be … well, myself, explains Hans-Erik Nordby Rasmussen, Head of Gjensidige Forsikring.

And he wondered also whether the effect of participating in the journey could be measured. Both for himself and for his work. For the kind of impact can be difficult to lead into a spreadsheet.

Hans Erik Nordby Rasmussen felt before the travel almost suffered a kind – walk as you talk – type. He felt that he was who he claimed to be. – He thought he was good at communicating it to others – as he considered himself to be a fairly open-minded person.

A group of business leaders took in the spring on a trip to the Pyrenees, where the purpose was to learn about themselves – and on that basis be a better leader

I have always considered myself to be relatively open-minded and have also tried to teach my children that they should not put other people in the crib before they have learned to know them, he explains.

But already at the airport found he subsequently discovered that he was not quite what he thought about himself:

At the airport I had had quickly scanned many of my fellow travelers and more or less consciously formed me an initial impression of the others. But I had to realize that as time and the talk went, so kept my initial impression not plug, he explains here shortly after his return – and adds that he journey among others has become even more aware that we must expose misjudging other people after he has learned to know them.

Talk about values

On the journey in the mountains, the participants were among others set to go in pairs and were coached to figure into the individual’s core values.

We were set to find out what these values mean to you and how you act and communicate on the basis of the values you want to stand for and in conversations, two and two, we were challenged up and down the mountain. The conversations were often so intense that we do not really experience the environment around us before we reached the top of the mountain or kept breaks.
The journey was to find favor to be themselves. – And not only in conversation – an evening were for example take place in total silence: An evening walk in silence, where all subsequent had to stay overnight in tipis.

Being itself came in the context of a sudden the test. Sleeping with five people you just met, and in the same tent, meant that it was hard to be themselves.

An elbow at the side

Hans Erik Nordby Rasmussen knew from home, that if he slept on his back, so it would not disturb the other.

I strived to be lying on the side and not as home to roll onto his back, because I know that means I sometimes snore. And then I get right elbow somewhere by my wife, he explains.

Hans Erik Nordby Rasmussen got tested its values in life to travel to the Pyrenees.

But here I did not want to bother my sleeping comrades and strained me so as not to be myself. I felt that I had no sleep that night, but it confirmed a tipi friend me the day after. “He told me that I snored, but he had not the heart to wake me up because he had just pulled a few “cod in the country”. We talked about that we actually were several who had been like. We felt us tense – but the doctrine is precisely that you are aware that you do not feel like themselves – and it’s important to recognize.

Another view of himself.

After returning labeled Hans Erik Nordby Rasmussen that something had happened to him.

– I is another reason balance now – I can feel that I can use the things I have from the trip in relation to my family. My wife and I go for long walks together, where we have gone and get together. The same one can also do with her children.

Also professionally Hans Erik Nordby Rasmussen had a different view of themselves:

I’ve got an even better foundation to build on. The better I know myself and my values, the stronger I feel in my leadership. Whether it can be felt on my behavior and communication is difficult for me to say now. It can my staff and colleagues be allowed to answer. But it will be interesting to see if the depot medication runs out – or this was an injection of life. I believe in the latter!

Examine your route in advance and make a plan so you do not risk getting lost.
Check the weather forecast and always take clothes for a whole day.
Make sure food and drink.
Always tell others where you are going and when you can be expected back.
Move the edge of the desert areas.
Do not schedule trips longer than you know you can handle.

Kurt Lykke Lindved
Pyrenees Orientales, France