On the Rocks: An RPG Lifesciences Leadership Offsite

How 26 leaders walked into the hills of Hyderabad to anchor a three-year vision — and walked out believing ₹1,000 crore was reachable.

Industry: Pharmaceuticals    |    Format: In-person, Outdoor Experiential    |    Date: April 2026

The Brief

RPG Lifesciences Limited, the pharmaceuticals arm of the RPG Group, was at a critical juncture in their strategic planning cycle. They had assembled 26 leaders — from the India MD and CXOs through middle management — for a closed offsite to define the company’s next three-year vision: Team Velocity, with an audacious ₹1,000 crore target on the line.

The leadership came to TEX with a clear ask. They didn’t want a session that talked about teamwork; they wanted an experience that built it. They wanted the room pushed into discomfort. They wanted leadership stretched across functions and hierarchies. Most importantly, they wanted to know whether this group, together, could believe in the number on the slide.

The TEX Solution

We took them outside. A 4-hour hike on the outskirts of Hyderabad, 30 minutes from the offsite venue. But the design had a deliberate twist that set this experience apart from a conventional facilitator-led trail: we shifted the centre of gravity entirely to the participants.

The brief on the morning was simple. We pointed to the summit. We told them they had to find their own way up. We split the group into four teams and gave each one a facilitator — but the facilitators were a presence, not a guide. The teams were given the essentials: food, knife, ropes, a ground sheet for shelter, first aid, and a board to map their own route. And one more thing — a worksheet titled On the Rocks.

The worksheet was the workshop’s spine. Built around four elements — Adventure, Nature, Survival, Tribe — it carried a set of challenges each team had to complete on their way up. Read the land. Find a safe shelter spot. Manage your water mid-way. Notice signs most eyes miss. Take a break and chill with your tribe. The challenges were written in a deliberate Hinglish blend — jangli nishaan, kuch cheez, sanket — so the hike felt culturally rooted and playful rather than imported corporate jargon.

The whole design was anchored in a principle the worksheet itself opens with: what matters is that you arrive together, and that you engage with the journey, not just the destination.

The Experience

In the first stretch, the four teams took different routes. They competed. Each one wanted to find the cleverest line up, the quickest path, the smartest reading of the terrain.

By the midway point, something shifted.

Teams started helping one another through challenging sections — across team lines, not just within them. The grit on people’s faces as they climbed small rocks, pushed through uneven ground, and worked through unfamiliar terrain was the kind you can’t engineer in a boardroom. The competition gave way to an inherited team — one the facilitators hadn’t drawn on any whiteboard.

The most cinematic moment came halfway up the trail. One of the teams got stuck. They couldn’t find their way forward. After a long pause — instead of forcing the next step — they made a decision none of us had scripted. They sat down. They took out a watermelon they’d been carrying. They cut it open, shared it with each other, and looked back at how far they had come. The view from the stuck spot was, it turned out, worth pausing for.

That single act became the workshop’s quietest piece of teaching. In a strategic offsite obsessed with a destination — ₹1,000 crore by year three — a team had just demonstrated, in real time, that part of the journey is knowing when to sit down and notice it.

Later in the trail, the facilitators threw an unscripted scenario at each team: a teammate had been “injured.” Build a shelter. Apply first aid. Resolve it. Each team did. The shelters held. The first aid was administered. They moved on.

The Strategic Connect

This was a strategic offsite first and a hike second. Which is why what one of the participants said on the trail — overheard, not staged — became the line everyone remembered.

“Now achieving 1000 crore seems easier.”

That’s the moment the brief was answered. ₹1,000 crore had been a slide-deck number. By the time this leader said it, four hours of unfamiliar terrain, unscripted challenges, and unplanned generosity between teams had rewritten what the room believed it was capable of. The number didn’t shrink. The team grew.

The Debrief

Every team reached the summit — though reaching it was never the point. Three threads surfaced in the closing reflection. First, that competing teams had, on their own, become a single inherited team. Second, that the most useful moments hadn’t been the climbs but the pauses — the watermelon spot. Third, that the discomfort the leadership had asked us to push the room into hadn’t broken anyone; it had stretched everyone. What looked impossible at 6 AM looked plausible by 10.

The boardroom version of Team Velocity would resume the next day. But the version they’d live by was the one they’d just earned.

What the Client Said

“The session was fantastic and very well curated. All teams took different paths — some very difficult, some easy — but what came out in them was sheer teamwork, and how all of them made their way to the summit. The debrief under the tree was very interesting, with your expert facilitation.”

— Senior Leadership, RPG Lifesciences

The TEX Frame

A three-year target on a slide is a number. A three-year target after a four-hour climb is a conviction. RPG Lifesciences walked back to their offsite venue with the same vision they had walked in with — and a very different team carrying it.

Want to design a leadership experience that earns conviction, not just attendance?

Get in touch with TEX.