Retreats That Work • Meeting and Retreat Facilitation Skills Training

"Here, as promised, is the feedback from the World Bank evaluation of your facilitation training program. The bottom line is, the program was swimmingly wel received by all (scores of 5 in all categories)...I'm not sure we needed an evaluation survey to tell us that! Thanks again. I'm thrilled that we had the fortune to meet and make this program happen"

—Lead Management Consultant, The World Bank

Ten Reasons NOT to Hold a Retreat
A retreat is not the best means of responding to every situation and addressing every concern you might have.

Don’t convene a retreat if your intent is any of the following:

To improve morale through the retreat alone. Although taking positive action based on the recommendations made at a retreat can increase participants’ commitment to the organization, don’t expect that simply holding a retreat will improve morale. In fact just the opposite can happen. A retreat can have a negative impact if the issues that come up aren’t dealt with appropriately, if people feel that they are not heard and their concerns are not taken seriously, if conflict is not managed successfully, if trust is violated, or if participants feel the retreat was a waste of their time.

To use the retreat to reward people for their hard work. Participants rarely see retreats as rewards for doing their jobs well. They’re likely to have even more work waiting for them when they return from a retreat, juggling family needs can be difficult, and many would find time off with family and friends more rewarding than attending an offsite.

To discover and punish non-team players. This is a terrible reason to have a retreat. If people sense that your purpose in bringing them together is to find out who is loyal and who is not, it will erode trust and do great—if not irreparable—harm to your organization’s culture.

To advance a covert agenda. If you try to pursue an agenda that is different from the retreat’s stated purpose, you will undermine trust in yourself personally as well as in the organization. It is far better for you to tell participants that you have decided, for example, to cut a department’s head count and to ask for their help in determining the best way to handle layoffs than for you to try to manipulate them during the retreat into endorsing your idea. When people figure out what you are up to (and they will!), it will foster resentment and engender much more resistance to your ideas than you would encounter if you had been truthful all along.

To control the conversation. It is counterproductive for you to try to control what is said or who is authorized to say what. You must understand that just because something isn’t said out loud doesn’t mean that people aren’t thinking it. Trying to direct what participants talk about deprives you of strategic information you need to make informed decisions. Putting everything out on the table and having a candid dialogue about participants’ perceptions and misperceptions is better for you and for the organization as a whole than trying to stop people from saying what’s on their minds.

To squelch conflict. Some people relish conflict, but most dread it. Typically, the more people care about each other, the more averse they are to confronting conflict openly. But aiming to avoid conflict at all costs will practically guarantee that it will crop up in some form or another and that it won’t be managed effectively. Successful retreats almost always involve surfacing and dealing with disagreements, disputes, or differences of opinion.

If no conflict emerges, chances are participants aren’t being honest with themselves or with others or that the retreat has focused on issues that aren’t of great concern to them. Conflict is inevitable (and actually healthy) when people care about something. It’s key not to ignore it or dismiss it. Instead, take advantage of your facilitator’s expertise to find ways of managing conflict so that it can be explored openly.

To create a platform for your own ideas. Retreats provide a valuable opportunity for leaders to hear from others. Don’t squander it by doing too much of the talking yourself. It is best for you mostly to listen to what others have to say, and to repress your inclination to lead discussions, persuade others, and resolve disputes.

To disregard what participants recommend. There is nothing more demoralizing to participants than being led to believe that they have a role in the decision-making process, only to learn that key decisions were preordained. Participants will naturally expect that you will take their advice into consideration before reaching a decision, and that if you don’t accept their recommendations you will explain why. If you ask participants to rubber-stamp decisions that you (or others) have already made, or if after the retreat you announce and attribute to the participants decisions they didn’t make or ideas they didn’t generate, the effect is likely to be very destructive.

To defend your point of view, promote your position, or maintain the status quo. Retreats are associated with change in most people’s minds. If you want things to stay the same, have a meeting to encourage everyone to keep up the good work or throw a party to thank everybody for a job well done. Reserve retreats for times when you’d like things to be different. And remember, the first person who is likely to have to change is you. If you are not willing to explore more productive leadership practices, it’s best not to have a retreat.

To merely keep up the tradition of having annual retreats. Many leaders think that having a retreat with no other purpose than to bring everyone together on some regular basis is a good practice at best and harmless at worst. It is neither. A retreat is not a company picnic. Frivolous offsites give retreats a bad name. Do not plan a retreat unless you have a serious purpose in mind. Any other approach will communicate to participants that you don’t value their time.

Also remember that a retreat is not a conference. A parade of presentations by in-house or outside experts can provide valuable information or training, but it doesn’t constitute a retreat. It’s certainly important that people be well informed, but a retreat should be about sparking change, not just absorbing or exchanging information.

Return to Top | Return to Previous Page | Return to Home