I’m actually working with a couple of client organizations on the agendas for offsites that will happen this week and next. In twenty plus years of management work and leadership coaching, I’ve been in the room for a few really great offsites and a lot of really awful ones. Based on all of those hours of participation, observation and facilitation, I’ve developed some pretty strong points of view about what’s needed to create an effective and worthwhile leadership offsite.
Here, in my humble opinion, are three things that every leadership offsite agenda has to have:
Context: You absolutely have to answer the question, “Why are we here and why does it matter?” Another question to explicitly consider and answer is, “How does this meeting help us achieve the results we need to achieve?” If you don’t establish the context for the meeting, people will leave thinking it was a waste of time. Your agenda has to consider the desired set of results, make them explicit and reverse engineer back from that end state picture to figure out the best uses of time during the offsite.
Process: Make sure the meeting employs a process that gets the participants engaging with each other. There is nothing more deadly or pointless than a roomful of people passively listening to one interminable PowerPoint presentation after another. Consider framing the offsite around three or four core questions that matter to the future of the organization. Structure the agenda so it’s a mix of large group and small group conversations. If it’s a planning meeting, bring a skilled facilitator in to assist with meeting design, running the flow of the meeting and documenting the follow up.
Space: Whatever you do, please don’t cram the agenda full of items that put people in a position where they’re expected to think from 7:30 am to 10:00 pm. You’re dealing with human beings. There’s no way you’re going to get 100% contributions from people when they’re on a forced march. Give them some space during the meeting to take care of themselves and pursue some non-agenda driven connection with their peers.
What do you think are the critical factors in conducting an effective leadership offsite? What have you learned about what not to do from any offsite disasters you’ve attended?
Process: Make sure the meeting employs a process that gets the participants engaging with each other. There is nothing more deadly or pointless than a roomful of people passively listening to one interminable PowerPoint presentation after another. Consider framing the offsite around three or four core questions that matter to the future of the organization. Structure the agenda so it’s a mix of large group and small group conversations. If it’s a planning meeting, bring a skilled facilitator in to assist with meeting design, running the flow of the meeting and documenting the follow up.
Space: Whatever you do, please don’t cram the agenda full of items that put people in a position where they’re expected to think from 7:30 am to 10:00 pm. You’re dealing with human beings. There’s no way you’re going to get 100% contributions from people when they’re on a forced march. Give them some space during the meeting to take care of themselves and pursue some non-agenda driven connection with their peers.
What do you think are the critical factors in conducting an effective leadership offsite? What have you learned about what not to do from any offsite disasters you’ve attended?
Coffee, my friends, coffee. Don't neglect the creature comforts.
Posted by: jenny tucker | September 15, 2010 at 09:41 PM
This may be self serving, Scott, but professional facilitation is a very high ROI service. We did some research last year and found that meeting sponsors said a skilled outside facilitator/ meeting design is the highest value spend they made on meetings. Ironically, among meeting sponsors who had not used facilitation, it was among the least likely investments they would make in a successful meeting.
Posted by: Barry Goldberg | September 16, 2010 at 06:25 AM