There’s no ‘treat’ in retreat
“I don’t really know what you’re up to, but I know one thing: There is no ‘treat’ in retreat.”
That was the voice of a valued colleague who fastidiously prepped key documents and data for our strategic offsite sessions. She admitted she had a hard time equating data with fun.
Looking back, I was immersed in the professional and organizational value of offsites before I had the language for it. I worked in a school for five years where the principal invested in an annual offsite staff retreat that typically involved an evening session, an overnight stay, and a full-day session. He believed the investment of time and budget could accelerate outcomes. There were staff-led elements and leader-led ones; there were social components and developmental ones. Karaoke and games brought the laughs. We worked; we played. One of the outcomes was closer relationships that paid off during the fast pace of a school year.
Fast forward to 2007 when I accepted a leadership role in a new organization, led by a CEO and executive team committed to building a cross-functional leadership team that would operate as a focused coalition. There were two or three strategic offsite retreats each year, year after year.
What became apparent:
The investment of time created connectedness - and eventually interdependence - between otherwise distinct business units.
The emotions and laughter created collegiality and friendships. Genuine laughter is soul food for teams.
The ‘stretch assignments’ in each retreat sparked our development.
Investing in our leadership team created collective ownership of and shared accountability for organization-wide goals. I’ve since discovered what a rarity this is.
The intentional design, over successive experiences, created a container to hold depth, complexity, challenge, uncertainties, and change. For years, our team became greater than the sum of our parts. Eras like this don’t last forever, but oh my, do they imprint us.
Well-designed offsites are strategic punctuation marks. They build relationships and results. They interrupt our day-to-day ways. They activate the power of the pause. They generate question marks. When designed well, retreats create a trail of ellipsis-like connections from the offsite location to the office.
It’s easy to understand why boxes of data didn’t suggest magic and possibility, foreshadowing that there was going to be ‘no treat in retreat.’ But a well-designed strategic session is full of ‘treats’ in the form of insights, connections, new questions, and shared accountability. At their best, great offsites energize the people and fuel the work.
And p.s. - offsite locations don’t need to be faraway or fancy. A scenery change into a space that’s nearby can suffice.
