Experiential learning involves learning through direct experience rather than through traditional forms of instruction. It allows participants to learn practical skills like communication, teamwork, and conflict management through interactive games and exercises. During experiential learning programs, participants are placed in simulated work situations that help them develop soft skills and self-awareness. They learn about topics like perception, problem-solving, and leadership styles through hands-on activities. The goal is to improve participants' abilities to collaborate, resolve conflicts, and strengthen their personal and professional growth in a fun, engaging way.

1. Why Experiential Learning is important?
Experiential Learning is learning through experiencing certain thing. It is related to experiential
education, action learning, adventure learning, cooperative learning and service learning but not
similar to it. A simple way of explaining the concept of Experiential Learning can be given in following
way. We all remember in school we were explained about police and fire brigade by books and
pictures, and when we understood the theory of who they are? And what’s their job? We were
taken to their working place to experience the reality. Here what happens is that the theory that u
learned through picture and books gets clear with the practical visit there and now u have a proper
knowledge of police and fire brigade in theory and in practical. This is one way of experiential
learning. The other way is to experience first and then explain them the theory of what did they
learn about. This is more successful when it comes to employee and hence we focus on it.
I myself have attended experiential learning program when i was studying management, it was
amazing and thought it needed a new level or a version. I shall not discuss the theories and models
but would explain what all we can learn. So, we can learn, Ice-breakers, communication, perception,
team (building & cooperation), conflict management, problem solving and evaluation. There are
more internal sub-topics in each of these. We all are thought to communicate, but we see 80 % of a
company staff not able to communicate with each other. It’s not just because of a conflict or
attitude but many more things like culture, gender, education, position and state of mind. Now while
participating in an event helps the staffs breaks these bonds, but event to not give 100 % result.
Hence all staff participating in an experiential learning program will ensure there is communication
among each and every participant. This is done by specific games which are played with the
participants. Why games?? Games are generally what everyone will not mind playing; also they are
the best way to learn. Like play and learn, experiential learning also teaches participants about the
entire problem we discussed above.
The learning process we have chosen accordingly so that it can we learned indoor/outdoor and in
one/two days. So you can do it, during the weekends and in office or an outside location. It can be
used as R-n-R (rest and relaxation) event by the companies. Employee shall actively participate in
this because it is going to teach you something that will be useful every day at work and in life. The
event is simple everyone comes to a location early morning and the starting session happens over
breakfast and snacks. This starting session include Warm Ups, Ice Breaker and Introduction. There
are many ways in which warm ups can be conducted, we have chosen a warm up which is “catchy”,
easy to remember, and ensures warm up every time used in a healthy way. Ice Breaker – this is the
most difficult part of any conversation. The Ice breaker as we know makes the people involved in the
conversation comfortable so that the conversation gives positive results or a thing that serves to
relieve tension between people, or start a conversation. This depends upon person to person; we
have many types of personalities like listener, talkative, biased, diplomatic hyperactive, quite, short
tempered, cool minded, etc.. Understanding this and using a correct ice breaker is very important as
it will have an influence on the further direction of the conversation. We make people learn by
practically using these ice breakers in a conversation so that they understand its importance and
method of use.

2. Introduction is again the identity of the person, I many a times while meeting people have seen that
there is always a hesitation; The handshake loose and conserved, the name is not spoken properly,
low on confidence many other things. These things also affect the conversation and position in the
group of people; it creates many things in the mind of other people. Hence your introduction should
have certain things that we let you about, which will help appear yourself as you are supposed to be.
Perception is the ability to understand and interpret, now we all know perception is on a
psychological level and every person have different perception. This perception is many a times one
of the major reason of disturbance in the management, where the choice between truth and reality
comes in. The solution is to identify/explain the context in the matter before coming to
decision/conclusion. We while going through the perception session will teach practically how this
can be done, and it will be a nature reaction of the participant that will help them realize the
concept.
Communication: we all know the basic communication process and the barriers of communication.
In the communication session we shall practically see the process and the barriers and how to
overcome them. In communication, voice modulation and tone of voice plays very important role in
oral or spoken communication. Similarly, in written communication, writing type matters the most.
Communication, be it telephonic, face-to-face, written or even body language is an influencing factor
in the result of communication.
Team (building & cooperation): A team has two parts team leader and the rest team. We are always
thought to be a leader and every one most of the time is trying to be one. This concept of everyone
trying to be leader creates ego clash and attitude problems; also we think that to become leader is
the only way to succeed. So what does a leader do if he has no team? We know not everyone can
become a leader, but the problem is acceptance. Acceptance that you are not a leader but a team
member is considered as bad in many places, which is totally wrong. A leader need a team, so first
we need to accept who we are team member or a leader and then move ahead with the team. In
our team session we make people experience their quality themselves, if they are leader or team
member. They select their position instantaneously just like a response to stimulus and work as a
team. The end result is they know who they are and how to accept leadership or give leadership in
the team. In this method, there is no ego clash or attitude problem because the position to each and
everyone was given by every individual. This method also ensures cooperation as every individual
has selected a leader and they know who will lead and how to follow, the leader will know who can
do which part of the task and responsibility is divided based on free will and interest. In this way the
team and their leader learns how to manage the task and complete it with excellent result.
Conflict Management: managers spend more than 18% of their time on relational employee
conflicts. This is due to increasing competition, complexity in work, use of teams, group decision
making and globalization. These conflicts can be in a group or among the groups. Learning conflict
management through games helps participant resolve the task with fun and no tension or stress.
Also practice makes perfect, so the more participants get involved in the games the more they get
smooth with conflict resolving/management. We in our conflict management session put
participants through many games to ensure they have learnt the very essence of conflict
management as it is the most important thing for any manager in a company.

3. Problem Solving: The two words are self explanatory; problem solving is something that we feel we
have been doing since childhood. We have been learning it from parents, teachers, elders and
seniors. We also know the common steps: Identify the problem, find out different ways of solving it,
select the best of the ways to solve it, test the selected ways for by building it, and evaluate the way.
If all these things are as per your requirement then implement the solution. All these steps have
things to be considered and few are already known to everyone. Problem solving is mainly done by
mind set or psychology. The session on problem solving in our program gives you lot of time to come
up with ideas and solutions. These ideas and solutions are discussed with all and from these ideas
the best is selected with reasons. Tested and implemented as practically as possible.
These are the few things that are done during the experiential learning program, this can be said
management games or training, soft skills training or any other name. Experiential learning are to
improve your human assets; for employees : if your company is spending money and time for these
kind of learning and training, do not think of it as a waste of time, it is for your own growth. A
company can explain the employee after such a learning session how company goals and employee’s
personal goal can be reached by simply doing what you are hired for. An employee can link his
personal goal with the company goal with the job he is doing with the help these learning sessions.
How is this possible? Experiential learning is no just about the things discussed in this blog, but much
more. It includes life skills, self growth, vision/thinking correction, ethics, etc, which help an
individual grow. If every individual grows the company grows, this is bookish, time consuming, long
term thought process and many would say impractical and unrealistic, but the question is are you
willing to do it. If you can, others will also do. We are all thought to be leaders as I mentioned earlier,
but not all are leaders, the company also has to decide what kind of work culture they are forming
for the future to see.
Starten Solutions LLP