Why Bother Having Another Offsite?

I am constantly amazed at what oftentimes seems to be a profound lack of strategic thought and approach when it comes to how off-sites get planned.  It truly blows me away when I ask a planner what the purpose or objective of their meeting is and they don’t know. Sometimes I’ll ask the ultimate trick question.  “How important is alignment?”  The replies I get are staggering and makes me wonder if certain organizations just have money to burn for a good time?  Getting people breathing the same collaborative air in a face to face meeting experience is a special opportunity to create an environment to drive the right conversations to ensure that everyone is "playing from the same sheet of music" before they had back home. If you or your organization are going to spend precious dollars and effort flying people in, taking attendees away from their jobs, planning and coordinating, shouldn’t there be an expectation of a return on investment?

I realize some of you reading this might view the idea of using an offsite to align everyone as one tall order based on your prior experiences.  However, there are certainly some things that can be done to better your chances for success, but they require a different type of thinking.  Here are a few ideas to think about:

1. Understand The Why Behind The Meeting.  Whatever business owner is responsible for the meeting and the results of the business, has some idea of what they want to accomplish in terms of a result.  It’s the job of everyone else supporting the effort to get it out of them, even if it means challenging them as to why they are having a meeting in the first place.  This requires a different type of conversation and discovery that some meeting planners aren’t always comfortable with.   If there isn’t a compelling reason to get together beyond “it’s time” then maybe you should tell them to save their budget.
2. Don’t just check the “boxes” of keynote, team building, awards, entertainment etc. I always know when a planner is doing this when they ask, “what can you do in 2 hours?”  This is after I ask about the overall agenda, content and business objectives. If you just check the boxes to fill in time slots you could run the risk of a disjointed attendee experience. It's difficult to capture hearts and minds if the content and totality of the experience doesn't make sense to those attending.
3. Look at the event holistically.  If you don’t, how can you possibly architect a meeting experience that takes people on a journey that connects them to each other and back to the organization?  People want continuity and meaning and also want to feel like there is a purpose behind what they are being asked to do at off-sites. After all, every person attending is making an investment. Generally speaking, investors expect a return. Feeling connected, learning something valuable and gaining clarity on key topics that enable individual and collective success should be high on the list of deliverables.
4. Be open to what’s possible.  There are lots of great speakers and content providers who can be a tremendous resource in providing content that helps educate, motivate and align in ways that transcend business.  Here is a link to help expand thinking as to what is possible for your next offsite. Your attendees don’t want to just drink the Kool-aid and be better workers.  They want to be better people as a result of the meeting.  The challenge is that planners often fall back into “safe” choices for content that are popular, but not always effective in the way of the right message or development opportunity for individuals to leverage the experience to drive business results.
5. Have clear actionable next steps after the meeting.  Attendees rarely believe that anything will be different after a meeting when it comes to learning or new initiatives.  Allow the content providers you work with the right access to the business owners in the planning stage so they can help create a sustainability plan.  This enables the meeting to serve as a springboard when everyone is aligned around what happens post meeting.

I passionately believe that an offsite should be the ultimate catalyst for igniting that ever- elusive spark. Unfortunately, it won’t happen by itself.  Game changing solutions require different, open- minded approaches to how we think about the same old things. Ultimately, a little bit of strategy and intention can help keep your fans from turning into critics after your next offsite.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Alan Schaefer is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Banding People Together, a super group of behaviorists, strategists and rock stars who teach people how to effectively collaborate to enable executional excellence.  He created Banding’s True Collaboration® system which is powered by The Collaborative Harmony Index diagnostic (CHI). The CHI measures collaboration on an individual, team and organizational level and is designed to increase effective collaboration.  To find out how you measure up as a collaborator click here.