I have to admit something. I hated writing that subject line/title. I’m a generally a glass half full kind of guy. I’m a positive person who always tries to see the good in all things.

But I can’t escape the hard reality that almost every corporate off-site I’ve ever seen has failed to live up to it’s potential. Despite the great expense, both in terms of real money and the time invested by lots of important and highly paid folks, most offsites fail to deliver any real return on their investment.

And the reason is that most organizations have almost no idea what they really hope to get out of them.

It seems like a good idea. Get people out of the office, do a little team building – it sounds like it should be a good thing. And it really is.

But simply getting people out of the office is not enough. You need to know exactly what you hope to acheive – and this is where most organizations go horribly wrong.

There is only one real reason to hold an off-site: to bridge the silos and divides that develop naturally in any organization and to setup the real work that will follow the event.

There must be a specific outcome in mind and it should be one that can only be achieved by working across the organization in some way. The goal of the off-site, then, is to bring these players together, to bind them to a common, shared vision of the future, enable them to build empathy for one another and to set them forth on a challenge that they can only accomplish together.

When you understand that, you can see where normal “team building” exercises fall drastically short. They may help build relationships and perhaps a little (temporary) empathy, but they don’t create the lasting kind of bond that is required to actually get something done. It’s also why having “strategic planning sessions” in which everyone is simply waiting for their turn to talk don’t work. These typical types of off-site events share all of the same gaps. They fail to galvanize a team to get some big things done after the event.

So, if you’re planning an off-site for your team (or even thinking about it), make sure that you go into it with the right mindset and intention. Know your desired outcome after the event and orchestrate the entire event around it. Do so and you’ll realize a great return on your off-site investment.

If you are considering holding an off-site, we can help. Contact Us today to learn more.