George Frew discovers there's a time when being hauled over the coals is good for your job prospects...

In less sophisticated times, employers used to encourage their staff to greater efforts by placing a few extra crisply-laundered fivers in their brown pay packets. Occasionally, the boss might gee up the workforce by inviting them into his office for a chocolate biscuit and a nice cup of tea.

Nowadays, motivation comes in the form of an invitation: firewalk with me. In the modern world of corporate affairs, motivational courses are big business. Charging across the countryside like a squad of commandos is believed to be good for building morale. Smells like team spirit.

Swinging through leafy glades like an English version of Tarzan, wading thigh-deep across freezing rural streams and living off a handful of nuts and berries are considered to be just the thing to knock the marketing department into shape or make the lads and lasses from accounts blossom. And if it can all be rounded off by strolling across a bed of hot coals - barefoot, naturally - so much the better.

It has, of course, been known to go wrong. Horribly wrong. Consider the recent case of the Eagle Star Seven. The employees of the life insurance giant had reached the climax of their one-day motivational course in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, and the glowing coals awaited.

Unfortunately, the Star seven didn't wait for the coals to cool sufficiently and, instead of marching off in triumph, they found themselves, er, hot-footing it to hospital to be treated for burns and blisters.

One of them is even believed to be in need of skin grafts. Luckily, they were all thought to be insured... However, when a firewalk goes well - and it must be stressed that they usually do - then the feeling of achievement is, according to Bicester businessman Curtis Fray, "fantastic - and it really does build team spirit".

Curtis, 25, and his partner Chris Hughes, 23, started up their computer systems business with a loan from the Prince's Trust.

So when the Trust invited those it had helped to return the compliment by taking part in a sponsored firewalk at the Grove Technical Centre in Wantage, Curtis thought, "Yeah, why not? I might as well give it a go."

"I was a bit hesitant at first, but then I thought, well, I won't get another chance. I think I'd have been more concerned if the Eagle Star thing had happened before I'd done it, but that was the first time I've ever heard of anyone being injured. "The guys who trained us have been doing it for ten years and have never had an injury."

Before the actual walk, those taking part were treated to a three-hour seminar on the power of the mind to focus positively.

"It was all about how thinking can affect us," Curtis explained. "We were asked to concentrate on what gave us a great andrenalin rush and to analyse it."

Outside, the crimson cinders of a pile of wood glowed nicely in the gathering dusk. About 20 feet in length, three feet wide, gleaming like demons' eyes and hotter than hell. As hot as 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit, to be precise. Aluminium melts at 1,100 degrees F. Boiling point is 2012. Firewalk with me?

"We were asked to walk at a normal pace," said Curtis. "It took me six steps from one end to the other. It didn't feel hot, it felt like sand.

"I wasn't aware of the temperature but I didn't pause and I didn't rush it.

"It builds team spirit - at the end of the evening, we were all there for each other. And yes, I'd do it again, with training."

In less sophisticated times, employers would haul their staff over the coals to keep them up to scratch.

Now, they get them to walk over them because it's good for their souls and (usually) does no damage to their soles.

A blistering pace is not necessary.

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