Sally Duxfield is an Experiential Architect who designs and delivers leadership training — creating memories like nothing else in Aotearoa, and perhaps even the world.
Sixteen years ago, she purchased the pioneering Makahika Outdoor Pursuit Centre in the forested foothills of the Tararua Ranges north of Wellington. Sally has now established her luxury off-the-grid Retreat, Arete Leadership Village. Her aspiration; for leadership Consultants to bring their clients into this extraordinary space. Nestled above her river, Arete is an environment that encourages ‘deep thinking, reflection, connection and innovation’. The Retreat also has access to an array of adventurous activities such as survival training, high ropes and the zipline.
Arete, also accommodates bespoke yoga, wellness and ‘other’ retreats, and the occasional private group. And though Arete provides luxury lodgings, its purpose is to guide clients away from their comfort zones—materialistically, and mentally.
“There are no cell phones, there’s no electricity,” Sally continues. “You can’t plug anything in. There are native trees and birds and silence and you. It’s extraordinarily cathartic and grounding—a place for contemplation. Clients may sit and reflect on the privilege that we share in this country, to identify what’s really important.”
Sally, has an operational military background, working with business and high-performance athletes such as the under-20s NZ Rugby leaders. She’s refined methods that don’t just test her clients’ physical and mental resilience, but ones that delve deep into the soul. Her expertise is ‘Soft Strength’, making critical business decisions with the mind; leading with the heart.
Sally’s ‘Wilderness Programme’ is the conduit for deep growth, strengthening resilience and forming HP teams. “It sounds trite, but what we do is absolutely life-changing,” she says. “One of the tools we utilise is the campfire. From a psychological point of view it’s rooted in the primal part of the brain. Our response to fire comes from our Neanderthal forebears, whereby if you were invited to the fire, you were invited to the safety of your clan, to food, to storytelling. Exclusion meant coldness and hunger.”
Sally says clients’ reactions remain just as primal, with layers of the psyche gently getting peeled back.
“We may have eight clients around the campfire, and at least half will have tears dripping down their faces. And we’ve only been with them for two days. They might share family issues, or abuse, or of a suicide. Fears of imposter syndrome and topics not generally shared. People open up and ‘put on the fire’ events they’ve never articulated. It’s a privilege to witness such vulnerability.”
Not only is nature great for the soul, but studies have shown that it aids learning, and most vitally, memory retention, too. Sally says that up to 86 percent of knowledge learnt within a classroom training environment is forgotten within 10 days (Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve); and within a month, as little as 6 percent of that training remains stored in our brains.
“So, if you think of the hundreds of millions of dollars of money that’s spent on leadership training and conferences around the world, for people to retain less than a tenth of it, is an appalling return on their corporate investment,” she adds.
Sally’s programmes enable clients to create “memory hooks” that attach “like a Filofax” to smells, sights and sensations within the natural environment.
“When the brain senses a smell or recalls a ‘moment’, attached to that memory are all the files of information that you learnt during the experience of memory-making. Such methods can increase memory retention by up to a staggering 90 percent. Your return on investment is extraordinary because you have created a memory. That’s why I call myself an Experiential Architect; I design programmes where you can feel, do, and sometimes smell, creating the ‘memory hook’, and you transfer that learning into your work environment. The ability to recall that knowledge is rapid and valid. It’s the new way forward in corporate training; ethically we need to be getting a much higher return for our training dollar than we have done historically. And we need to be passionate about creating Soft Strength and resilience in our leadership teams.”
