Maybe it’s the word “retreat” itself. According to Merriam-Webster, the first definition of the noun “retreat” is: “movement by soldiers away from an enemy because the enemy is winning or has won a battle.” Only secondary definitions refer to it as a place of privacy and safety.
No wonder employees tend to flinch at the thought of an off-site. It has become so off-putting that companies have spoofed the concept of corporate retreats in ads, such as this one by American Airlines.
But retreats can boost team collaboration, creativity, and be “a fabulous way for entrepreneurs to pop the bubble they may find themselves in,” says Beth Buelow, founder of coaching company The Introvert Entrepreneur. One of my companies does two annual retreats a year. And our latest one, this past December, showcased a few reasons why our staff (and I) look forward to them.
Let Different People Lead Parts of the Agenda
Our culture, like many built and staffed by Millennials, runs on collaborative leadership, a style of leadership that is “anti top-down.” Roles and responsibilities fluctuate and evolve, rather than stay stringently in place. Retreats are an ideal situation to introduce or further a collaborative leadership style, allowing more junior level employees a chance to lead a whole section of the day. Plus, I’m pretty sure no one wants to hear me talk for seven hours straight. So as the founder, I get a chance to watch leadership styles of others and how colleagues respond.
Measure the Impact
Many retreats end with the Monday-morning problem: when you return to the office, forget about the retreat, and carry on with business as usual, according to HR Advisor. How do you know if your retreat even mattered? We now find this out immediately by taking an organizational checkup, as recommended in Gino Wickman’s “Traction,” right before the retreat and upon wrap up. I consider “Traction” the bible of business, whether you have five employees or 5,000. The checkup is a quick 20-question assessment which any staff member can answer. I hope for increased scores after a day and a half of reviewing our goals, issues, mandates and so forth. But the numbers objectively justify wishful perceptions. In our last retreat, the scores showed that our off-site increased our organizational checkup score by 14 percent, a hard number that shows by merely outlining and discussing our business, we became a healthier company.
Reflect on What You Learned
A study by Harvard Business School recently found that the link between learning-by-thinking and greater performance is explained by a personal evaluation of one’s capabilities to organize and execute actions to obtain designated goals. Said differently, in the words of American philosopher John Dewey, “We do not learn from experience … we learn from reflecting on experience.” Every retreat, we have a discussion about what we individually and collectively learned in the past six months. Everyone is asked to prepare the learned lessons beforehand, which makes for a double dose of reflection pre- and during retreat.
Plan for Unplanned Time
Google is now famous for its 20-percent rule, which allows employees to use one-fifth of their time freely. What Google knows, unsurprisingly for the company ranked best in the U.S. to work at, is that free time boosts creativity. Employees know this as well. A recent study found that 51 percent of respondents think that it’s necessary to have free time to be creative. During our retreats, we purposely put “free time” on the agenda. Not only is the unscripted time a relief from a rigid schedule, but it also yields fresh thoughts and ideas that get shared later on.
What are some tips that make your retreat a worthy one?
