Off-site Company Retreats
For strategic planning and Professional Development
Should you invest in an off-site company retreat?
There are a variety of reasons why you should consider making this investment. Perhaps your group of employees is not functioning as a team; or your departments simply just don’t work together. Are you considering developing a strategic plan? If so, this process is often most successful when your team can get away from the office and focus on the task at hand. When trying to incorporate a strategic planning process in your office conference room, along with the daily responsibilities of your managers and executive team, the process is often interrupted thus preventing ideas from being fully explored.
Lead2Goals encourages you to go beyond the conference room and get off-site! We provide off-site strategic planning retreat packages and can assist you in planning all of the logistics. We have our own retreat center in the mountains of Big Bear, California. If you are looking for a more exotic location, you might want to think about holding your retreat along the beaches of Costa Rica. If you have your own location in mind, we are happy to work with your team to develop the content that will be most beneficial for your organization.
Business Planning
STRATEGIC PLANNING
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
— Albert Einstein
Strategic planning is not something that can be done by somebody locked in a tower. It takes collaboration between departments. Organizations have created silos and these need to be broken down and ideas need to be shared between the stakeholders. This is no easy task. The process we take in our strategic planning sessions brings together the best of our other retreats, trust-building, and conflict management before we ever get to work on the strategic plan.
Most organizations will tell themselves our interdepartmental communication is fine, and most organizations are lying to themselves. This strategic planning session lasts a minimum of 4 days and 3 nights but many decide to stay another day. This is an intense program, that we insist incorporates no more than 6 hours a day in session, and builds in time for recreation, both adventure as well as leisure time and of course great meals.
CREATIVITY & DESIGN
“Rational thoughts never drive people’s creativity the way emotions do.”
— Neil deGrasse Tyson
There are times when the creative team just needs to get away from the office. They may need to smell some fresh mountain air, go on an adventure, or just relax around a fire without any phones ringing. The creativity and design retreat does contain facilitator-led discussion, but it is our most relaxed retreat program. Our goal is to provide the creatives the space needed and a place to collaborate to unlock their brilliance. The sessions encourage free-thinking utilizing brainstorming, nominal group technique, role-playing and improv exercises in a unique combination that will stir the juices of the creative mind.
PROJECT DEVELOPMENT
“Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public measures are therefore seldom adopted from previous wisdom, but forced by the occasion.”
— Benjamin Franklin
Lean methodology is utilized to work through the steps of bringing a product or idea to bear. This program utilizes a combination of strict process adherence combined with brainstorming. These combinations at first glance do not seem to mesh, but the process of divergence leads to synergistic ideas that simply would not come forth otherwise.
The process takes time, but the results are worth it. The program seems a bit too messy at first for some, but as the concepts come together and the plan is developed we not only create projects that stimulate the group, we build a strong coalition in the process. This coalition becomes the evangelists and champions of the newly defined project creating the path forward for its implementation.
Oraganizational Development
Trust Development
“The trust the people have in the leaders reflects the confidence of the leaders in the people.”
— Paulo Freire
Trust is the basis of all relationships. Most people will tell you that it takes time to develop trust and only seconds to destroy it. We have developed a process to accelerate the time it takes to build trust within an organization. This process can be deployed between individuals, departments, and even between management and labor. It requires a combination of Humility, Empathy, and Vulnerability but it can be deployed anywhere where people are motivated to build a relationship. This retreat can last anywhere from a day to three days and it will transform your organization.
Team Building
“Individual commitment to group work, that is what makes a team work.”
— Vince Lombardi
Strategic planning is not something that can be done by somebody locked in a tower. It takes collaboration between departments. Organizations have created silos and these need to be broken down and ideas need to be shared between the stakeholders. This is no easy task. The process we take in our strategic planning sessions brings together the best of our other retreats, trust-building, and conflict management before we ever get to work on the strategic plan.
Team Building
“Individual commitment to group work, that is what makes a team work.”
— Vince Lombardi
All teams are groups, but not all groups are teams! The difference is that a team is aligned to work together for a specific outcome. They are on the same page, they share a purpose and commit to working together to achieve the shared vision. John Wooden said, “I worry that business leaders are more interested in material gain than they are in having the patience to build a strong organization, and a strong organization starts with caring for their people.” A team requires leadership, we believe transformational leadership. This is where the leader inspires the group and the group chooses to create a team. This 3-day 2-night team-building retreat develops teams through thoughtful alignment of your organization’s Vision, Mission, and Values. This alignment is created with management and employees working the steps together and creating a team atmosphere.
Conflict Management
“There is an immutable conflict at work in life and in business, a constant battle between peace and chaos. Neither can be mastered, but both can be influenced. How you go about that is the key to success.”
— Phil Knight
Conflict is not a bad thing, in fact there are several benefits of conflict. They can create awareness of problems, create opportunities, challenge creativity. lead to better solutions and improve outdated methodologies among other things. The problems lie is either how they are managed, or worse yet that they are avoided completely. During this 3-day, 2-night retreat, we will explore ways to coax divergent ideas, develop a model for resolution and acceptance of that resolution. This process is one that will provide you and your team with takeaways whereby you will be able to encourage the debate, and build a team whose goals remain in alignment.
