Offsite
I always marvel at the power of offsites and the outcomes that happen when a collective of minds come together - to hash through growth challenges and more often than not - the need for change.
After 30 years of participating in and or running offsites in my corporate and startup days, combined with 10 years of facilitating offsites for high-growth companies, I have come to believe that the answer is always in the room. It usually comes from either the most quiet person or the individual who deals with the challenges on a daily basis - but never had a voice.
Several years ago, I was fortunate to be involved with a team of people solving big hairy problems in a 48-hour sprint. It was the epitome of agile meets rapid prototyping meets innovation. The challenge was to take on a company’s biggest problem or ambition and attempt to solve it directionally in 48 hours.
The intensity of those experiences working with Global 100 companies taught me a lot about human dynamics, behavioral science tweaks, and listening for nuggets that would fall out of people’s unintended remarks. It also taught me that just because you were a billionaire on paper, you didn’t have all the answers.
GROUP DYNAMICS
Over the course of inventing a new clothing line, solving for a biometric banking introduction, and shifting a culture to share its intelligence with clients dependent on that insight to fixing a new app launch gone bad, I picked up the nuances of injecting surprises into cold start scenarios.
Add to that working across future of work, fintech, edutech, protech, HRtech, worktech and good ol CPG firms, you quickly learn that working in small teams of five, six or seven is optimal to building energy and tension into the room.
The art of injecting industry adjacent speakers, and sharing insights from feedback loops, while nudging and prodding people along a journey of discovery can lead to magical results. And, putting individuals in positions that are not natural to their expertise yields interesting outcomes from having to change your perspective.
The more interactive, with time limits, the better. You want tension and intensity to flow through the course of a workshop. Identifying change and thinking differently does not happen without stretching people out of their comfort zones. The job to be done is not to repeat the Status quo - it is to destroy it.
And, now I am working with ai-led companies who have to think in new paradigms because what they are creating may not have been possible before. That to borrow from Geoffrey Moore - is really finding ways to cross the chasm.
INFECTIOUS IMPACT
Offsites create “infectious impact”. They do so in two ways. They enable Speed to Value and they ignite Social Capital. I wrote about Speed to Value a few newsletter back. I believe the outcome of an offsite is literally to create speed to value.
The other non-consequential aspect of an offsite is to infuse a sense of social capital across your teams. I wrote about the impact of Social Capital earlier this year. This becomes even more pronounced when you take into account the distributed workforce - many of whom have not met each other given the dynamics of post-COVID workplace situations.
My work with Noro.co on the launch of their workplace portals rekindled the importance of having IRL or synthetic IRL meetups. There is nothing more powerful than humans connecting to discuss opportunities in a real-life environment.
You can’t build an infectious impact on a small screen. You may be able to facilitate the workshop or the offsite via a small screen, but you can’t replace the laughter at the table, the coffee exchange at the break, or the glow of sharing a toast after a day or two of intense inputs and outputs.
THIRD-PARTY STIMULATION
After years and years of offsites, in big rooms, small rooms, and sometimes no rooms, I have really come to value the importance of having a third party person or team help to run the day(s).
The inherent bias is removed. The hidden agendas are neutralized. The titles are left at the door. The job to be done becomes the focus. And to quote a famous Peter Drucker, “Long-range planning does not deal with the future decisions, but with the future of present decisions.”
Offsites are about present decisions made together in a collective. And, I am willing to bet you a bottle of Napa Cab, that the answer(s) are in the room - if you give them a chance to be heard.
NOW (How you are realizing this today)
Did you have an offsite recently or are you planning one?
Are you making sure it is a collective across the organization? Not just a leadership-only team?
Have you hired a third-party facilitator to help you with your offsite?
NEW (How you will realize this tomorrow)
We will rethink how we offsite this year to include distributed people.
We will pull together a collective of talent from top to bottom and side to side.
We will trust in a process that may be unorthodox to how we do business if we want to think beyond our self-imposed capacity.
NEXT (I see a world in which)
I see a world in which the answer is always in the room. But it will depend on who is allowed in the room. Divergent thinking doesn’t happen with the same circle of folks who got you there.
THE PAYOFF
"The best offsites challenge assumptions and shake up the status quo. They're catalysts for organizational evolution." - Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors
Follow me on LinkedIn. Or DM at tobin@spatialshift.com for more information.
If you are seeking a way to optimize your next offsite, book a free consultation with me, and let's consider the possibilities.
My work has raised a collective $1B+ for the companies I have worked with over the last 10 years. And, I have helped dozens of companies and executives to find their narrative voice. More importantly, I help companies to listen to their own voice.