‘It can be solved by walking’

St Francis of Assisi’s words solvitur ambulando, ‘It can be solved by walking’, became my mantra when I realised that my best, most workable ideas and, in my humble opinion, genius plans, have been conceived while walking.

I have sat in many anonymous meeting rooms with BluTa- marked walls, supposedly brainstorming, a pile of coloured sticky notes beside me, staring at a list of objectives beamed in black and white bullet points onto the wall in front. Looking frantically around at colleagues knowing that we are all hoping for inspiration to strike, knowing we need to focus and fast. My brain, like theirs, always had other ideas and paced skittishly from topic to topic, racing between excitement at the goal and fear at the size of the task and timescales ahead. At this point, doubt usually crept into the room and creativity flew out of the window. Now if faced with that scenario I would stand up, grab my colleagues, walk away from the uninspiring and get outside, knowing we will return invigorated, excited and with a very cunning plan.

Who doesn’t love fresh air? I have always felt more joyful and positive after a good walk, standing on top of a hill just climbed, shouting woo hoo at the magnificence laid out before me or crying into the wind, striding alongside great friends halving our problems by sharing. It had never occurred to me that this same feeling of rejuvenation could be applied to my corporate life. That is until my CEO arrived from Silicone Valley to chat through our five-year plan and he bizarrely insisted on doing this on foot, saying ‘come on, let’s walk the talk!’

We wandered the streets of London side by side, coffees in hand, mobiles and notepads back in the office, and faced the future together. We discussed and questioned our goals and aspirations for the business and personally and for the first time understood each other on many levels. Assumptions previously made about each other were discarded and we returned focused and energised with greater respect for each other and a truly workable plan, which was a joy to implement over the next few months. This particular walking and talking approach brought new meaning to a jaded corporate phrase.

I now guide teambuilding groups of staff and executives over the South Downs, the theory being that if I have planned the route and am leading, all they need to do is walk together and be inspired.

I am there on those occasions to remove barriers and unnecessary distractions.

Recently, I was leading a group of eight executives, who, after a busy couple of days filled with activities and new experiences, had paired up for the final walk. They had set objectives together over breakfast. After a steady climb up a narrow, overgrown chalk path we broke out onto the Downs and the wind (or the ‘spirit of the Downs’ as we like to call it) did its best to knock them off their feet, take their breath away, split them up, but they dug deep, stayed together and kept walking and even laughing at what was being thrown at them. There were a few woo hoos as they turned into human kites but there were a number of light bulb moments as they looked at situations in new ways. Most importantly, they laughed and we all know that ‘laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face’ (that’s Victor Hugo for you).

Philosophers have always known the benefits of creative thinking and walking, Henry David Thoreau wrote ‘methinks that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow’. Jean Jacques Rousseau wrote ‘I can only meditate when I am walking. When I stop, I cease to think, my mind works only with my legs’. A Huffington Post article posed the thought that just maybe the connection between our minds and legs is that one of them is going to wander whatever you do and that if you get up and walk, your mind will slow down and focus.

Coaching while walking may be seen by some as the current on-trend coaching concept but Aristotle regularly taught while walking.

To my mind, if walking and coaching worked for possibly the most influential educational thinker of all time it should definitely be explored as a way of getting the most out of employee meetings and feature in team-building days and corporate planning events

Science has backed up philosophical thought. A study in the European Journal of Developmental Psychology said: “We conclude that the interaction of walking and cognitive performance is influenced by sharing resources between two tasks…and that performance improvements in cognition may be caused by exercise-induced activation of resources. Studies also showed that exercise leads to increased executive control or planning and focus, so walking is not only beneficial to creative thinking but enables your brain to focus on planning and implementation.”

In other words, ‘It is solved by walking’ and the South Downs provide a wide range of beautiful and inspirational thinking spaces, far from the routine and demands of daily workloads. Why not try it and breathe new life into your meetings? If you need help, a guide or inspiration, please do get in touch.

Debbie Greenfield has a background in sales, marketing and digital media, working for major corporates in the City of London. She was director of content services at BrightTALK, providing webinar and video solutions to clients, including Invesco Perpetual, BNY Mellon, HSBC and Barclays, among many others. Prior to that, Debbie was sales & promotions manager for AXA Life. After a fabulous career in content marketing, she escaped to the countryside in 2014 to set up Basecamp Southdowns with her husband Darren, a professional shepherd. Debbie now offers alternative corporate awaydays, providing thinking spaces for jaded members of the C-suite and teambuilding without the zip wires for staff.