Big summer off-site planning season is upon us. Whether to finish off the fiscal year or to make sure you start the next one strong, feverish preparations are underway. Organizations spend billions convening some collection of senior leaders (and preparing elaborate leadership offsite agendas).
“The Annual Meeting,” the “Senior Leaders Forum,” the “Global Leadership Summit,” the “Executive Retreat” are common names given to the annual mecca at which executives converge to reflect on past year’s performance and discuss the future. Tragically, these costly convening’s frequently fail to be more than boondoggles at favorite golf resorts. If you do the math, the hourly run rate of attendees’ combined salaries is staggering. The simple litmus test of whether or not value is being created by assembling top leaders is this: would you invite your shareholders to watch the meeting? And if you did, would they want to buy or sell your stock?
The irony is these gatherings, usually ranging two to five days, have tremendous potential to galvanize commitment, build needed capability, deepen understanding of strategies and market dynamics, and yes, rejuvenate weary leaders after hard seasons. They are mechanisms that could serve as major forces of accelerated change, but often don’t. These off sites need to be aimed.
[Effective Leadership Development]
Haven’t Got a Clear Offsite Leadership Agenda?
No problem, we have some leadership dust right here (or do we?)
Having been frequently called to rescue impending big off-sites from the jaws of failure, here are twelve painfully common ways to ensure yours goes off the cliff should that be what you want.
1. Set Expectations Too High for Your Team Offsite Agenda
“We will look back one day and see this meeting as the turning point in our organization’s story” is one of the most common openers and parting refrains of CEOs at these meetings. When you raise the bar too high, you set people up for emotional letdowns when they come back off the mountain. Saying “this will be a transformative time together” might be possible, but better to under promise and over deliver. Let inspiration follow.
2. Randomly Draw the Invitee Cutoff Line
When the guest list dips layers into the hierarchy, where to cut it off becomes a major pain point. “Senior Director and above” gets declared and immediately exceptions are made. So invitee-criteria looks capricious, and some executives are faced with “why wasn’t I invited” from those who feel unjustly excluded.
3. Call the Golf and Spa Agenda Items “Team Building”
There is nothing wrong with providing time for rejuvenation and fun. Trying to cover up appearances by calling it “team building” is disingenuous and causes people to feel guilty. So they end up going back to their room to do emails instead of the enjoyment you intended.
Team Offsite Agendas Don’t Last the First Week Back…
4. Pack the Leadership Offsite Agenda With Dozens of 7-Minute “Updates”
Either from ignorance about how adults process information, or not wanting anyone to feel robbed of air time, it’s astounding how many three-day agendas are packed with nine days of content. And no matter how many times the facilitator declares “you have 7 minutes,” presenters show up with 50 slides.
5. Pick a Really Exotic Location so the Rest of the Organization Feels Bad
There’s “nice” and there’s “decadent.” You don’t have to take people to the ends of the earth to make the location feel special. To really overachieve, don’t schedule any free time for participants to enjoy the beautiful surroundings. Then everyone feels bad.
6. Don’t Try and Tackle Substantive Issues in Your Executive Offsite Agenda
Banality and superficiality often appear like design criteria for these meetings given the complex challenges leaders should be discussing. Worse, agendas feign addressing hard topics with one-way content dumps followed by “we’re going to take this discussion off line.”
7. Go off Agenda Early, But Don’t Alert Presenters You Won’t Get to Them
Because of an agenda careening off course from overages on poorly timed segments, those scheduled for later in the agenda are left wondering if they will get to present their “critical data.” So they stew in anxiety until someone tells them “we’ll have you come to next month’s business review instead – you’re too important to rush through here.”
8. Have an Expensive, Celebrity Speaker With Irrelevant Content
Drop $50,000 to $150,000 on a former president, movie star, or athlete who comes and tells the same war stories they’ve been telling for years. Then, leave it to the MC to retrofit the high-priced shtick to appear applicable to the organization’s challenges. Finish with autographs, photo ops, and cocktails.
9. Encourage Hallway Collusion by Keeping Honest Conversation Out of the Room
As soon as tension arises because that one “mouthy” executive asks the provocatively undiscussable question, call a break.
Executive Offsite Agendas Are Just a Piece of the Puzzle
10. Have Break-out Sessions With Confusing Directions
I’d love a dollar for every time I’ve heard people wearing the same colored dot on their name tag walk into the breakout room asking, “Now what are we supposed be doing again?”
11. Don’t Finalize the Agenda Until the Day Before
Why give people a confident sense of what to expect when you don’t know yourself? Better to keep them guessing and have your facilitator make jokes about it that start with, “I know it says Bill is next on the agenda, but actually…”
12. Do Cheesy Activities Intended to Build Cohesion
Who doesn’t love a scavenger hunt, right? Paintball? Team cooking school? How about kayaking or hiking with mixed groups ranging from those in Olympian shape to morbidly obese. Then, to ensure it’s declared a waste, don’t provide time to debrief the activity to see if any cohesion was actually built.
Convening leaders whose collective influence has the potential to change history for an organization is a massive undertaking of massive proportions. With a clear aim, creative design, and careful planning, you actually can create transformative experiences. While leaders are gathered, trust that the rest of the organization is fasting and praying in hopes they come back with meaningful news. Don’t squander invaluable (and expensive) opportunities to advance your organization’s story. Treat these gatherings as precious resources, assemble the right expertise to build them, and you’ll get the lasting impact you intend.