INTRODUCTION
It’s been more than a year since the COVID-19 pandemic has altered how we work and one thing is for sure. We miss in-person contact. We miss seeing and engaging with one another face-to-face. We are social beings. No matter how effective and efficient new technologies are in enabling our remote work and team connections, they will never replace an in-person handshake, smile, hug or meaningful face-to-face conversation. That’s why, as vaccinations rise and the pandemic subsides, holding an off-site meeting can be the most powerful way to shift into the next new normal for work.
Off-site team meetings can occur anywhere including hotels, homes, and different parts of your existing offices. They can last from one day to multiple days. And they don’t have to be complicated to arrange. Most important is that you and your colleagues spend quality time together. As such, it is important to consider what quality time together should mean for you and your team. In order to consider what constitutes quality time together, you can consider three dimensions of success.
THE THREE DIMENSIONS OF SUCCESS
In his book, “Conscious Business”, author Fred Kofman describes a model for three dimensions of success in building a sustainable business. These three dimension are as follows:
The “I” dimension refers to the individual person and their state of well-being. The better their state of well-being, the better they will likely engage with others and be able to focus on critical thinking and execution.
The “WE” dimension refers to the group or team. This dimension is about how well a team is integrated and able to perform collaborative tasks together. The state of the “WE” dimension in any team or group is a reflection of the amount of trust that has been developed between its members.
The “IT” dimension refers to the task. The business process and tasks we undertake every day at work in order to move things forward and achieve desired business outcomes.
Let’s now take a look at how an off-site meeting impacts these three dimensions of success and provide amazing benefits.
INDIVIDUAL WELL-BEING
Off-site team meetings provide an opportunity for each individual to reappear in the group context. It should be a space for people to bring their full selves to meet with their colleagues, each of whom has been impacted by the previous year of the pandemic in their own ways.
Emotional Connection: Humans are emotional beings and yet much of our work is spent in the realm of all things rational. An off-site meeting provides the time and space for individuals to bring and express their emotions, reconnect with the emotions of their colleagues, cement bonds via shared experiences, and use these emotional connections to build further trust with others. Just the act of asking someone how they are doing and feeling face-to-face, eye-to-eye, and being able to express one’s answer can be transformative. It’s a visceral connection that online meetings cannot recreate. Off-site meetings can provide a safe space for team members to share their pandemic experiences and reignite their emotional connection to each other, the team and the business.
Providing the space and time for individual team members to feel accepted and respected for their unique and individual value moves people from simply complying with the rules or a task, to feeling a real commitment to the task and its outcome. As such, individuals are more motivated and inspired to engage with their colleagues to produce business outcomes. An off-site meeting will re-engage your people and contribute to their individual well-being.
TEAM COHESION
Just as an off-site allows for individuals to be cared for and reintegrated into a face-to-face team, the team itself benefits from its interaction. Team off-site meetings are a wonderful place to build trust amongst team members in order to fortify and build team cohesion.
Building Trust – Trust is the currency of work groups and teams. Simply put, the more trust that exists between team members, the more effective they will be working together, and the greater the impact they will have on the business.
Trust exists in many different forms including emotional trust, personal trust, technical trust, and ethical trust. Trust is built through actions that fortify a person’s confidence in the other and their relationship. The full benefit of high performing teams with great trust between team members is best realized in times of challenge. That’s when the trust that’s been built up over time is called upon to serve the team.
In newly formed teams, people often confuse light, jovial and nice interactions as a strong team with trust. However, lots of laughter and joking, although fun, can mask a deeper lack of trust that has yet to be built amongst team members.
Off-site meetings provide the time and space to take deeper dives into activities that build trust between team members. These activities often become powerful reference points within the team and are used to help onboard future team members, as they cement moments when team members connected more fully and raised their confidence in being able to rely on one another.
BUSINESS ALIGNMENT
At the end of the day, the individual and the team exist to serve a business and produce desired business outcomes. As important as individual well-being and team cohesion are, neither matters much at work without the business context.
Business Review and Planning – Off-site meetings allow the time required for deep dive conversations about the business. These are conversations that rarely occur in the speed of and focus on day-to-day execution. Off-site meetings help team members lift their minds above the daily fray of execution to consider higher level strategies and longer-term views of the business. This deeper level of business discussion can make the difference between short sighted yet successful execution and adjusting your team’s approach to align with shifts and changes occurring in the marketplace and within your business.
One way to leverage off-site meetings for driving deeper consideration of the business, is to take a learning approach to business performance. It’s about taking the time to look back at your team’s last quarter, semester or year of performance and see what has worked and what has not worked and can be improved. As your team conducts this thoughtful review of performance, they should focus on learning not blaming, on what’s within the team’s control not on what’s outside the team’s ability to control. The learnings derived from reviewing recent performance can then serve as important information for planning strategy and execution moving forward.
Off-site meetings can also be a great way to have all team members participate in and feel ownership of the team’s business strategy moving forward. By leveraging the diversity of experience and creativity of the group’s members, teams can discuss strategy and execution, thus aligning behind what’s required for the future.
WHAT’S REQUIRED
Off-site team meetings do not have to be difficult to prepare, however, their outcome is usually as good as the effort and planning put into them. We recommend that you consider the following prior to holding your next off-site:
A Clear Meeting Purpose and Desired Outcome – Develop a clear vision for what your off-site meeting should be.
This begins by having a clear statement of purpose for your off-site meeting and an equally clear desired outcome for the off-site meeting. For example, a clear statement of purpose may be:
“To welcome our team members to the next new normal wherein we honor our team member’s pandemic experiences, reconnect with each other on a personal level, while discussing our business’ future and defining next steps for how our team will work together to achieve our shared goals.”
Another example of a clear statement of purpose for an off-site meeting may be:
“To reconnect with one another face-to-face, build further trust amongst ourselves, review our current business, and discuss strategy for the next fiscal year.”
By writing down a statement of purpose for your off-site meeting, you assure that your meeting will have meaning and purpose. The statement of meeting purpose defines the deep underlying reason for your off-site meeting.
Once you have your off-site meeting purpose in writing, define a clear desired outcome for your off-site meeting. Here are a few examples:
“That team members are inspired, motivated and committed to what’s next. That our team is full aligned behind a shared understanding of our strategy moving forward.”
“That all team members feel they have a voice in the future of our team, approach and work. That we are committed to building trust in our relationships and effectiveness in our execution.”
Once you have a clear statement of purpose and desired outcome for your off-site meeting, you can begin to plan an agenda that will fulfill them. This is the task of designing an effective agenda.
A Fun and Focused Agenda – Make sure your agenda creates space to discuss and achieve the purpose and desired outcome you have articulated.
Divide your agenda into sections or modules, each of which have a very specific focus. For example, you may decide to dedicate the morning section or module of your off-site meeting to reconnection, making this part of your meeting all about welcoming back the whole individual and reintegrating into team dynamics in person. You may then have other sections or modules of your agenda dedicated to different topics including group dynamics, team building and business strategy. And because it’s the first time you and your colleagues have gotten together in more than a year, make sure your agenda is Fun with a capital “F”. Enjoyment is a huge part of reintegrating your team in person. Make it fun. Make it enjoyable. Make it comfortable. Make it challenging in a learning-focused kind of way. Make it about the future. Finally, don’t forget time for check-ins and check-outs, breaks and meals. Each is an opportunity to care for your team. Make them feel special throughout.
A Space Away From The Office – As the name implies, off-site meetings are generally held away from your day-to-day office space. This is done for a variety of reasons including minimizing daily work distractions so participants can focus more fully on agenda items and stimulating new perspectives by being in a new and different environment. Additionally, a change of location can allow participants to show up without the context of titles and organizational structure, thus allowing them to more easily be themselves.
Off-site meetings are often held at hotels or even resort locations, however, neither are required for your next off-site. Just as easily, and far more affordably, you can hold your team off-site meeting in someone’s home. It could be the home of a team member or it could be an AirBnB rental.
And since you’ve been away from the office for more than a year, your actual offices can serve as a location, as long as you make a few adjustments. For example, use a different part of your offices than where you are usually located. Choose a space and time when others are not in the office or create a space within your offices by moving furniture to create a special space just for your off-site meeting. Most important, is that you hold your off-site in a space that is relaxed, fun, new and different for most of the participants and a place that feels “away” from the normal day-to-day business context.
Facilitation – Professional facilitators can add enormous value to the design and execution of your off-site meetings.
Great facilitators know how to design activities and group dynamics that optimize engagement, learning, meaning, and fun. The key is to find a professional facilitator with whom you feel comfortable and who listens to and understands your needs, ideas, and input. A professional facilitator should help you realize your vision for a great off-site by taking your input and designing an agenda that flows seamlessly and is filled with meaningful experiences that deliver on your desired outcome for the off-site meeting.
CONCLUSION
Holding an off-site meeting with your team can be the best way to reintegrate your team into the next new normal. This is the new normal that we will experience post pandemic, wherein our work will move forward in new ways that may combine the experience of working on-premises in an office as well as working remotely from home and elsewhere. People and business have been through a life-changing year and holding an off-site meeting will help you:
Care for your individual team members and re-establish in-person emotional connections.
Develop trust and strong team cohesion.
Align everyone behind business performance and strategy.
You can maximize success by having a clear vision for the purpose and desired outcome of your off-site meeting. This vision will then drive the design of an agenda that is focused and fun for all participants. And don’t forget to select your off-site location with care, making sure it’s different enough from the day-to-day work context that it removes distractions while inspiring comfort, fun and sharing. Finally, consider using a professional facilitator who can help assure that your meeting and group dynamics are maximized.
The pandemic has been hard on people in many different ways. Some have flourished while others have not. Now the limits put on us by the pandemic are increasingly being lifted as vaccines are distributed to more and more of the population. It’s time to get on with work in the next new normal. The best way to get started is through a great off-site meeting that brings your team together face-to-face with the time required to deepen trust and relationships and align on your business performance moving forward.
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