"You were able to establish at the retreat an atmosphere of trust and openness that was greatly valued by all staff, and contributed to the important breakthrough achieved at the retreat. We have since the retreat continued with working groups converting the retreat discussions into action in the office."
—Department Manager, The World Bank
From Chapter 2, Planning the Retreat… Pre-Retreat Interviews with Participants Never put on a blindfold to cross a busy highway in the middle of the block. And never – repeat, never – agree to design or lead a retreat without having conducted some independent research to assess what’s on participants’ minds.
Many years ago, when we first started doing this work, the president of a small Canadian company – let’s call it Maple Leaf, Inc. – asked us to design a staff retreat. To save money, the company’s president, Jane, suggested that we talk with her – and her alone – about the company’s issues and work climate. Foolishly, we agreed.
Jane painted a picture of a happy harmonious work environment. (Okay, we should have seen through this right way, but we didn’t.) Teamwork was great, she reported, morale high and turnover low.
On the second day of the retreat, we broke the staff into small groups and asked each group to come up with a creative way to illustrate what was positive about the company’s culture. All went well until the last group made its presentation. In an amazing show of bravado, this group announced, “The truth must be told!” And then each person in turn recounted a story about how the staff felt abused by management. Everyone in the room sat in stunned silence.
Had we interviewed staff members in advance, we would have picked up signals that Jane was out of touch with the staff’s perceptions. We then would have designed a retreat that addressed the real problems. Unfortunately, by the time the issues surfaced, it was too late for the group to explore them in a constructive way.
We learned a very important lesson from this horrifying experience: the client does not have all the information you need.
From Chapter 16, Your Role at the Retreat… Guidelines for Leaders Be Aware of the Impact of Your Presence Your opinions, expressions, body language – indeed, your very presence – carry a great deal of weight. We call this the “Big Kahuna” Effect. If yours is a high-trust organization, you will have an easier time because you start out in an open and positive environment.
If yours is a relatively low-trust organization, however, you will have to make a serious effort to convince participants that it is safe to speak candidly. This can be a real challenge, because you may have played a role, however unintentionally, in fostering the environment of distrust. One of the facilitator’s jobs is to coach you in how best to encourage open participation. Take advantage of that assistance; it will be invaluable.
Don’t Dominate the Discussions Don’t take over the proceedings, even if others defer to you (which they probably will, at least at first). It may be customary for you to take charge, but if you are an “air hog,” serious discussion will be inhibited and differing viewpoints will be suppressed. Also, let participants know why you’re holding back, so they won’t attribute false motives to your actions.
Because most people find it difficult to change habitual behavior, it’s helpful to agree in advance with the facilitator that he or she can tell you immediately if you cross the line from participating to dominating.
Tell People What You Think – Carefully On the other hand, don’t clam up and fail to express your opinions. You’re not, as the saying goes, a potted plant. If you don’t participate in the discussions, you will become a silent force in the room, and other participants will try to guess what your silence implies. Approval? Disapproval? Lack of interest? In any case, you certainly shouldn’t hold back until, like a sleeping dragon, you suddenly awake and breathe fire on everyone in the room.
Rather, you should feel as free as any other participant to express your opinion, although in most cases you should not be the first to do so. Be particularly sensitive to the words and body language you use when you speak. (This is true even during breaks and “hanging out” time; your voice carries weight no matter when you use it.)
There are exceptions to the don’t-speak-first rule. At a retreat we led for senior managers of a manufacturing company, we told the group what we learned from the interviews we conducted while planning the retreat. During the interviews managers told us they were afraid to express their views freely because they were concerned that Lonnie, the CEO, would criticize or punish them.
When we asked whether our report accurately reflected the group’s perspective, there was a profound silence in the room. After a while, it was Lonnie himself who broke the silence. “That sounds right to me,” he said, “and I want to change it.” His comments made it safe for others to speak out and helped establish a tone of openness that encouraged participants to recommend workable strategies for improving the company’s operations.
Work with the Entire Group Don’t raise your concerns privately with select participants. If there is an issue you need to raise, do it in front of the whole group. Retreats provide rare opportunities for everyone to speak candidly and openly. When you decline to raise issues publicly, you lose the opportunity to build the trust that a retreat can help foster. When you raise your concerns openly, on the other hand, you model ideal behavior.
Provide Realistic Guidelines About What Can Be Changed There will be times when it is more productive for you to participate not as an “equal” but as the leader – when, for example, you have information people need to make realistic decisions and develop workable action plans. If participants are recommending an action that you know the board has already voted against, for example, tell them so. If you know that the company doesn’t have the resources to pursue the particular course of action the group is recommending, say so and save everyone time. Such information will allow participants to alter their course. It’s very frustrating for the group when a leader waits until the discussion is over and then says, “Sorry, but that won’t fly.”
Know When to Hold Back On rare occasions you should refrain from participating at all in a discussion, especially if your involvement would inhibit participants from bringing a particularly thorny issue to the surface. You and the facilitator should put your heads together to decide what your participation in the various activities will be. Sometimes, your role might be to listen intently but not to join in the conversation. At another time, you might explain to participants why you are leaving the room temporarily.
Be Open About What You Have Learned About Yourself If the facilitator gives you feedback on the impact of your behavior on others, tell the participants what you learned about yourself. If there are things you can do differently, say so. Also tell participants what they can do to help you make changes they and you would like to see. It’s useful as well to tell people what you aren’t willing or able to change and why. Understanding why certain things are the way they are can help minimize grousing and wishful thinking. Your willingness to address the feedback you receive is critical for setting the tone of the retreat by showing participants that you value their candor.
Minimize the Differences During the retreat, eliminate unnecessary symbols of your status that remind participants that you are the boss. If the whole group is supposed to eat lunch together, don’t make an exception for yourself. If participants are expected to share rooms, make sure that you also have a roommate. If the dress code is casual, don’t turn up in a business suit. If everyone has turned off their cell phones, turn yours off too. If everyone else is on a first-name basis, you should be too – even if just for the period of the retreat.
Be Present Woody Allen once famously observed that 80 percent of success is simply showing up. It’s critical to the success of a retreat that the leaders be there – physically and mentally. A retreat shouldn’t be an event for others to attend. If you and your peers don’t make the commitment of time and energy to be present and engaged, the participants won’t take the work seriously. As a result, the retreat, at best, will yield no significant benefit; at worst it could do a great deal of harm.
And you should not only be present, but you should be present. Show up on time for retreat sessions and activities. Turn off your cell phone and pager (you might even want to make a public show of doing so) and make it clear to the folks who remain behind that you are not to be interrupted at the retreat for any reason short of a real emergency. And pay attention to what’s going on in the room; don’t read documents or make notes of things to do when you get back to the office.
Here’s an example of what can happen when a leader does not make the retreat his first priority. We led a year-long series of offsites for a large media company, aimed at rethinking the way the company did business. As the culmination of the department heads’ work, the company’s executive committee had committed to come to the last afternoon of the final retreat to hear the managers’ recommendations. As all the vice presidents were arriving, Rob, the CEO, called to say that he was held up in an important client meeting, but that the retreat participants should give their reports without him.
It was extremely disheartening for the group. After they finished their presentation, we asked the managers to write down their reactions to what happened and post them anonymously on a wall. Several people wrote versions of, “If this is such important work, where’s Rob?” With the group’s permission, when Rob finally made it to the retreat site, we asked him to read the comments that had been posted on the wall.
It was a tense moment as everyone watched Rob walk the length of the wall and read how people felt about his not showing up. He took a few moments to gather his thoughts, then said, “I’m so embarrassed. I’ve let you down, and that was never my intention. What can I do to make this right?” What ensued was possibly the first open conversation between the CEO and middle management that had ever taken place.
Manage Your Emotions Be careful not to let your emotions get the best of you during a retreat. No matter what you are feeling, you must control your behavior. It’s very unsettling for participants to have the boss raise her voice or break into tears of defensiveness or frustration. That doesn’t mean you should hide what you are feeling. If you are upset, angry, dissatisfied, or disappointed, say so. You’re not a punching bag. Don’t be afraid to speak your mind, but do so in a way that isn’t accusatory or threatening. If the issue is too “hot” for you to talk about calmly, ask the facilitator to call a break to cool off and get coaching from him or her on how to raise your concerns.
Let the Facilitator Lead the Retreat You did your homework and chose a facilitator you trust. Now let that person do the job. You may not understand why a facilitator is or isn’t doing something at a given moment, but it’s the facilitator’s responsibility – not yours – to get you to your agreed-on destination.
That doesn’t mean you should abdicate all responsibility for the retreat’s success to the facilitator. On the contrary, you must communicate any concerns that arise so they can be dealt with on the spot. The most straightforward way to do that is to raise your concern in front of the group, just as any other participant might do. A skilled facilitator will know how to handle the interruption and will also be able to incorporate the group’s perspective into deciding how to address your concern. For example, if you think the discussions have gone off track, the facilitator can solicit the group’s input and help everyone decide what to do about the new issues being raised.
If you think that your concern is too sensitive to raise publicly (if, for example, you are concerned that an employee with whom you have had difficulty is trying to sabotage the retreat), then discuss the problem privately with the facilitator during a break. Avoid expressing your concerns covertly (through someone else, for instance, or by passing a note that everyone can see to the facilitator) or in an angry manner. Find a way to discuss differences that respect the facilitator’s professionalism. Then take advantage of the facilitator’s expertise to resolve how to move forward.
Be Open to Change You should know that what happens at retreats is often hardest on the organization’s leadership – you and your peers. When you hear feedback from the facilitator, you may be surprised – perhaps unpleasantly – by how people have perceived your actions and how things are going in the organization. It takes self-discipline to listen intently and not become defensive.
When a client tells us that what his goal for a retreat is to change others’ behavior or attitudes, we ask, “Are you prepared to do the most changing? Because that’s probably what will be called for.”
