Professional Development Programs

The Central Park Challenge: A professional development program located in the heart of New York
Whether your company is large or small, success often depends on forming a cohesive group of people. Understanding the strengths, limitations, and potential of each team member is integral to improving a company's performance. The Central Park Challenge Professional Development Program can help your executives learn to create synergies and a sense of teamwork among diverse employees.

Building peak performance teams is what separates the best companies from the rest.

The Central Park Challenge Professional Development Program is designed to help you take your team to a higher level of performance. The heart of the program is learning through experience. Through a series of progressively more challenging activities, participants together as s team, they gain the interpersonal skills vital for success.

Using the North Meadow and Woodlands of Central Park as our classroom, we place groups of your executives in an unfamiliar environment giving them only the basic tools necessary for solving problems. We then challenge them with goals that demand teamwork, trust, and tenacity. Through group discussions, we tie these experiences together and develop a framework for understanding core team values. Each participant shares what he or she has learned and how it can be applied to the business environment.

Realize Your Potential
All exercises are designed to foster team dynamics, communication, leadership, flexibility, and risk assessment.

Programs Designed to Build Upon Your Strengths, Overcome Weaknesses, Help You Achieve Your Goals
A Program Coordinator will meet with you to tailor a program that fits your company's structure. In order to accommodate the unique character and needs of your organization, your culture and needs. You may select half-day, one-day, or two-day programs. Programs may be scheduled at any time of the year, in a variety of indoor or outdoor settings. Adventure components such as rock-climbing and orienteering can be added.

A Special Challenge Program is Available for Companies Involved in Youth Mentoring
While adventure activities help develop management and teamwork skills, they are also ideal for enriching adult-to-youth mentoring relationships. If your employees are currently involved in a youth mentoring program, our Challenge is ideal for growing relationships. Through a series of one-on-one and group exercises, the concepts and consequences of success, failure, self-esteem, and goal setting are addressed in a specially designed package. Group discussion follows each Challenge exercise, during which experiences and impressions are examined and applied to a broader life context.

Qualifications
All programs are well within the capabilities of those in moderate physical condition, regardless of age or gender. Safety is our highest priority. All program instructors are experienced group leaders with qualified first aid and CPR training.

For more information or to schedule a course, please contact our Program Manager at 212-348-4867.

Central Park Conservancy
The Arsenal
830 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10021

Professionals who participated in the Challenge Program Applaud Its Results
"The program was customized to give our group challenges which required development of teamwork efforts and trust. The financial management Associates were able to gain a better understanding of their colleagues' goals, values, and experiences through the group activities and facilitated discussions."
Judy Commando, Vice President, Human Resources, Citigroup Inc.

"The Professional Development Program provided lessons which helped us recognise the qualities necessary for successful teamwork. We also found many usefull parallels between the Challenge activities and work situations that arise day-to-day in the office."
Margaret Van Orman, Senior Analyst, Chase Manhattan Corporation

"The Central Park PDP helped our diverse group of employees take a new look at each other. I would recommend it to all companies who seek to improve teamwork and open communication skills."
Edward P. Pazicky, Managing Director, Corporate Human Resources, Marsh & McLennan, Incorporated

"The Central Park Challenge has provided us with full days of quality team-forming, trust-building exercises. It has become an integral part of our training process."
Jeremy Cantor, Program Director, The City Volunteer Corps.