If you were one of those kids who dreaded homework throughout high school, then planning an executive retreat may not be for you.
Advance preparation is the name of the game. Work on an executive retreat starts with getting inside the client's head, and planners thoroughly survey potential retreat participants ahead of time. This provides baseline knowledge about executives' personalities and, crucially, their input about where they believe their firm is heading, says Ed Tilley, president of El Cerrito, Calif.-based Adventure Associates.
"Let's say I've got a group dealing with a key leadership-position change,” he says. “We'll offer an electronic team assessment ahead of time, and we'll massage the agenda based on what the rest of the team reveals about their strengths and the opportunities. At other times they know they want to assess personality types, so that involves Myers-Briggs [personality tests]."
Heather Ramsey, a Redwood City, Calif.-based performance specialist for Insperity Inc., agrees.
“Let's say there are seven people on a board retreat,” she says. “I'm doing probably somewhere between 30-60 minutes per person of work to understand them, so up to seven hours total for a retreat. I'd probably do a personality assessment—we do Myers-Briggs or DISC, or use the StrengthsFinder book, which comes with an assessment."
Teri Louden, president of La Jolla, Calif.-based The Louden Network, sends out electronic questionnaires and usually follows up in-person as well.
“I want people to be totally open; if [I conduct] confidential interviews, they know no one is reporting who said what,” she says. “And I'll do an e-mail questionnaire with a topic like 'what do you think the top three issues for the company are?' ... I also try to work with some sales reps in the field, talk to customers [if possible, and] some former customers. ... Then the retreat is really focused on 'what do we do about this.'"
Length and Breadth
An icebreaker is one quick way to get people out of their normal office mindset, says Insperity's Ramsey.
"I do at least two icebreakers, because it allows networking time: some sort of drinks or appetizers, or something after the meal,” she explains. “But normally, if it's one day, I condense the icebreaker down to two-and-a-half hours. You have to get to the meat of what's going on pretty quickly."
An outdoor adventure followed by classroom work can server the same purpose, says Adventure Associates' Tilley.
“We'll always suggest going at the beginning, the idea being that when they go into those key sessions to prepare for the year ahead, it's much better—it takes the place of icebreakers," he says.
That could mean sailing, "geocaching" (essentially, GPS-enabled treasure hunts) in urban settings, or the Team Performance Challenge, a portable version of Adventure Associates' low-ropes course, which executives seem to particularly enjoy, Tilley says.
“People have had a lot of experience with them, and they like the learning that comes from having to look at a problem, plan it, execute it, and then have a trained facilitator debrief it: Who led, how did they lead it, how did it go?" Tilley explains.
Tilley's clients will usually devote one day out of three or two days out of five to outdoor activities.
“Most groups work best by doing,” he says. “So if we [want to] turn them on to a skill like conflict resolution, that only goes so far until they do it through one of these outdoor activities. They retain that information longer by experiencing it, and creating a reference to relate to later in classroom training."
Meanwhile, Louden says she can place retreat groups indoors or outdoors depending on the need: "We've done everything from sailing in Newport Beach, where everyone took a role and some people had sailed and some hadn't, to cooking places—there's one in Sonoma, where everyone takes a part in meal preparation."
Personalities
Executives attending a retreat don't leave their usual personality at home, and that includes tendencies toward both shyness and bullying, The Louden Network’s Louden says.
"I try to incorporate it so that every person has a part during the retreat, and can look good,” she says. “I try to get them to present information they wouldn't normally present—like if they presented the marketing plan three months ago they don't present that again."
Louden tries to ensure that everyone plays some part during a retreat and no one gets shut out—and no single personality dominates. The idea is that everybody has something to share, and everyone needs to sit back and listen while that happens.
"One CEO wouldn't let people talk, he would dominate [every conversation] and people complained about it,” she remembers. “So I said, 'If there's an issue and you take over and people can't express opinions effectively, I'm gonna ask you to leave the room—because you'll be wasting your money—and the group will discuss it and ... present you with something when you walk back into the room.'"
Louden relates that when this CEO took over a discussion, she indeed asked him to leave for a few minutes so that the group could consider the issue and create a recommendation. Then the CEO walked back into the room, Louden says, to a structured presentation on which he could give feedback and suggestions.
"And they loved it!" Louden says. "The CEO learned a lot, and everyone had their act together, and he was able to respond and everybody laughed about it. That's why I always say the outsider is the best person to lead a retreat."
