Running a great offsite is no easy task. Team members want to be fully engaged and spend the time productively. But they also want to have fun and get the chance to converse with other team members in a relaxed atmosphere. Naturally, when asking the team to set aside time away from the work setting, the bar is high.
In too many cases, offsites do not live up to the lofty expectations of the team and its leaders. This is usually a result of poor design, where the time is filled with too many presentations and not enough activities where team members get to learn together.
Highly engaging offsites typically have four distinct ingredients and a commitment to a fast pace with varying energy throughout the day and evening. The best leaders know the flow of the program is as important as the content, as the engagement of the team depends on it. So good offsite designs mix up the ingredients to keep things moving, asking the team to expend different efforts and cognitive energy at different segments through the program.
First and foremost, the team should do real work together. Team members and leaders should tackle real opportunities, problems, or challenges and utilize subgroups to create action plans for the future. Off-sites that don’t end with significant work products, like action plans or decisions, are often seen as less valuable and engaging.
Second, team activities should include an exercise where team members can learn more about each other. Even teams that have deep historical experience can learn more about the critical experiences, life events, and sources of pride that team members are willing to share. Teams that leave offsites without a deep understanding of who colleagues are as people miss a big opportunity to form stronger bonds.
Third, the team should engage in a learning experience where everyone is a novice. The key word is experience. Allowing a celebrity speaker to yak at the group for an hour seems like a bright idea but misses the point.
Letting such a speaker lecture for 10 minutes and then go to Q&A is a much better call. Better yet is to skip the speaker and design an experience that is fun, engaging, and requires real learning, like learning how to fence, make gelato, or how to work the lights and sound at a theatrical performance.
Lastly, the offsite should include one or more dialogues or discussions where the team can engage the meaty issues confronting the organization. These conversations focus on the most important matters to discuss right now.
The right topics will be a tad uncomfortable for people, but good leaders know the value of addressing the elephant in the room. Not confronting these issues leaves too much unsaid and is a big miss.
Great offsites are hard to create, but incorporating any or all of these ingredients will help to bring any team gathering alive and keep it highly engaging. Making the time well spent is never easy. Boondoggles in the sun, near the water, and in the mountains where not much gets done are certainly more fun, unless you want to make a true difference for the team.
