Leadership Retreats: Mistakes to Avoid Part 2

Host: And we're back everybody, for more questions on leadership retreat planning mistakes to avoid. Let's jump back in. Randall. I'm sure we'll see. We're seeing the same thing. But um, when I hear you say, you know, if you're coaching an executive or a leader and they ask you to do the retreat for the leadership team, um, you have all this huge amount of knowledge with the organization that you can, you know, inform the retreat. Yes. But you've heard it all from the perspective of that executive. Right? And the perspective of the executive is not the perspective of the other people on the team. Right. And perception is reality. And I find when we talk to the team, there's huge aha's huge, uh, gaps that are filled and huge backstories that are filled. And some of it is fantasy, uh, and some of it's exaggerated and some of it's perception. But we're able to do so much cleanup and alignment and I find that 360 really helps the leader more post. If you're, if you're in relationship with the leader as a coach, then it does actually help the retreat.

Randall Craig: I think you're right. I think you're right. And it's actually a very important question about how quickly we can um, gain the trust of the people around the table that we're having these one on ones with because they're sharing stuff with us that is, is exceptionally, ah, sensitive. Right. Uh, very, very confidential. And we can't betray that confidence to the person who's paying us to come in to do the retreat. Right. In the same way that, you know, if, if we're doing executive coaching for the CEO, for example, uh, we can't, uh, we certainly would not share that. We even know, uh, of a lot of the things that we talk about there. Yet on the other hand, as we aggregated it together and get a picture of, gee, the CEO says this, everybody else sort of observes or sees the opposite. Um, this is not alignment. And in that particular case, one of the objectives absolutely has to be alignment. Right. And having the conversation with the CEO to say this is what people are saying, okay. And to accomplish what you want to accomplish, uh, we feel that this topic and this topic actually need to be addressed. And usually there's a silence and, and a little discomfort and, and then there's a, um. I get it, I get it. Let's do it. How do, how do you think, how do you think we can square that circle? Well, we have some ideas. Right? And, and here's the, here's the point. No one gets embarrassed. Everyone feels like, uh, everyone feels like a hero. Okay? There's no confidences that are, that, that are broken or even hinted at. Right? Because the question is how do we move to that next level together, right? And, and I think it's a mat. It's a magical thing when, when the leader says, discovers for example that, that there's some blockers that they might not even have thought of. Alternatively, when things are fully aligned, okay, the question is, okay, um, how do we get everyone to this next level? How do we make individual star performers truly star performing team? Right? And, and, and, and how do we use that to get to the next level? How do we have more substantive conversations? Whether it's about strategy, whether it's about planning, uh, whether it's about uh, uh, dealing with externalities, whether it's, you know, something outside like AI for example, and then, and what the helicopter needs to do, whether it's particularly uh, some sort of, um, you know, upskilling training component of the day. Uh, um. But the idea is to get people talking in a way that once they, they go back that high performing team, they uh, know that team one is, is the group that, that has got their back, right? And they've got other people's back. And this is what it means and this is why. And, and, and uh, it becomes a lot easier. A lot easier. One of the things I'd like to talk about, I think one of the things that um, that, that prevents a uh, completely transformational retreat isn't that your um, you got everything planned, for example, but there's a bunch of different mistakes, if you want to call it that, that are preventing it from actually um, uh, being successful. And I wouldn't mind talking about a couple of them. Just, just hit, hit, hit, hit, hit. And I, I think one of the things that's most challenging is, is when the CEO or head of HR or cfo, whoever it is, that's, that's the key organizer decides that they're going to do the facilitation themselves. Or what they're going to do is they're going to round rob in different segments. Everyone's going to be a different facilitator, everyone's going to have an internal facilitator. And I think that's a big mistake because it takes you out of uh, the conversation because your job now is facilitator. You know, you now have to ask the uh, you know, you're not able to ask the tough questions. You're not Able to bring external insights. You have to keep your mouth shut in a certain sense because if you're trying to pull stuff out from other people, you know, your opinion is going to sway the masses in, in a certain way as a facilitator. So you've got to be very careful. So, so using an internal facilitator it sounds like a good idea. It gives it skills people up in the skill of facilitation. But uh, I don't think this is the place that, that it should happen. Um, I, I think um, the other thing that, that, that just kills you is can presentations. You know, very often, uh, the retreats where we're involved, we come in one day, we might do in late afternoon, evening, etc, or certainly. And then we're on for the full day, etc. And then the day after that is like internal meetings. Maybe it's budgets or maybe it's, it's um, you know, staff reviews or whatever it happens to be on, on day two. And we're not usually as involved on, on that day, but on day where, where we're sort of running the program. Um, um, the killer is can presentations. You know, gee, we've got like 70 or so different topics where we've got a canned presentation. And you know something, if you want us to do a webinar, we're very happy to do that can presentation. But that is not something that's success acceptable in a retreat. You cannot have an expert come in and talk about say decision making or culture or, or any other aspect save of leadership and give the can presentation about what this is. Unless it's 300%, 300% customized for your organization. The examples come from your organization, the challenges come from your organization. Uh, the interactive part of it or whatever is facilitated is specific to your organization. Every single slide has got to be focused completely on your organization. And what comes out of the facilitator's mouth has got to be just about your organization. Can presentations are the kiss of death because anyone can give a canned presentation. Certainly like I said, happy to do that for a webinar for you. Okay. Um, but it's got to be customized significantly. So okay, how does it get customized? All the industry research, all the company research, all the um, interviews, for example, all the time that you spent with the uh, with the event leader, uh, etc, just double checking and making sure you're using the right words and the right concepts and everything. So I think that that that's something that sometimes it becomes too easy just, just to do that um, another thing that I think is, is kind of an obvious one. But uh, everybody's got one of these things, you know, a, ah, little phone. Everyone's got, uh, some people have got these things, you know, um, I, I, iPads are wonderful. There's my son. Okay, um, everybody's got computers. We're doing this uh, this session on, on the computer right now. Um, but the purpose of the retreat is not to work in the business. You're doing that 363 days a year, maybe for two days we could work on the business and everyone's working on their own things. Maybe we can work on some things together. Right? Which means that maybe these things, the electronic stuff needs to be put off to the side and really put off the side. I know this is a watch and I get text on there. Put it on do not disturb mode. Okay. Um, have everybody's computer off to the side, everyone's phone in a bag somewhere. Right. And this seems like such a silly little thing, you know, uh, but you know, late at night in your room, if you need to check something, you're welcome to do so. But we need everyone's attention 100% on what's going on here and, and, and that's not negotiable. It really, really isn't. Okay, if it turns out that the retreat was scheduled and there's a crisis that came up like a, ah, week before and you decide to go on with the retreat, um, I have to tell you, we would scrap the agenda and we'd start from scratch in that one week. And the reason why is because you've got to take into account what that crisis is and wend it through to give people space to address the crisis issues. Right. And actually maybe put some of those crisis issues on the agenda. Right. And facilitate through those and that becomes the focus of the retreat. Things happen. Right. Um, but the electronics aren't there except for at a particular specific times where they might need to be there. By the way, one of the reasons why they might need to be there, here's one, um, one technique of facilitation is to co create a document. I don't really like doing this with executive groups, but you can have a Google Doc or a uh, shared word Doc, whichever platform you're using where everyone's filling some stuff out simultaneously and you're able to see it. And, and the reason why sometimes you might want to do that is because it helps people try something that they haven't when they go back to the office, they'll say well, why don't we try this with our teams? Maybe we could try this this with team one, but right on, on something or the other. Right. But generally speaking, no electronics. Um, I think uh, I, I, I think the um, uh, the other thing that is, is a big mistake that, that um, um is so easy to fix is to, to make sure that the leader at the, at the end of the day is committed to uh, the. Right, um, we talked about this a little bit before and how do we make change stick, right? How do we make sure the expectations are met, etc. Well, if everyone co. Creates, okay, that new direction, the strategic plan, the tactical plan, the new skills, the, the problem solved, gee, the merger issues, sort of a, um, line, whatever it is. What if the, the CEO, the executive director, whoever it is that's, that's facilitating this doesn't sort of bring this up on their, their, their, their one on ones, their check ins. What if for example, if it's that important, people's um, um, quarterly or semi annual or annual objectives are changed. Right? I mean, we need to make sure that whatever happens there actually gets followed up. Otherwise nothing will not, nothing will happen. So.

Host: Randall, can we jump to two questions in the chat?

Randall Craig: Yes, please, let's do that.

Host: Sure. Number one, I'm sure there's a lot you have to say. What's one thing that you change, if you could, about the way that people do think or feel about the retreats that they're planning?

Randall Craig: Oh man, Ren, you asked the most, uh, challenging questions because you uh, can mean, um, uh, the, you know, can mean the executive who's responsible for actually convening it, etc. Um, I think that uh, people become very comfortable, um, if, you know, if, if you, if you're in the habit of doing an annual retreat, which is a very, very, you know, strategic and important thing to do, take people out and have that, you know, on the business versus in the business kind of time, right? And you've, you've got the same facilitator as um, uh, you know, year two, that's fine. It was a good experience. Year three, it's kind of the same. You know, just rewatch the year four, it's, it really is the same. Okay. And there becomes almost this complacency of the group is when we go to retreat, this is what we do. And I think it's very valuable to actually change it up. Okay? Not, it doesn't need to be every single time. It's got to be new. There's, there's some merit in actually having them back a, uh, couple of times. But you know, if there's a complacency, that's sad and that's, that's sort of sitting there, okay, time to change it up. You know, it retreats. Yeah, I guess you're going to a nice place, a bit of a perk, etc. But from a business perspective, things actually have to happen. Right. And to get those new eyes in, it could actually make a huge difference to the expert, to, to the um, um way, uh, people feel. Okay. Uh, as the participants and the way, uh, you know, if you got a answer to the board and you say this, we're going to spend a big chunk of money on this. Okay. The obvious question is, oh, and what are we going to get for that? Right? It's got to be more than just we feel it was good or participants feel it was good. It was like, no, no, this was necessary because of fill in the blank. Um, that's, that's, that's kind of the, uh, that's, that's one thing, uh, you asked what's one thing that you change? Um, uh, yeah, I think the other thing is, is to um, make sure that the expectation that you have as the leader as to how people are, are fully there is, is, is completely set and what you're hoping to accomplish beforehand, the time to set that is not that 5, 15 minute sort of opening thing that you might say is the leader. It's got to be set over the month or two beforehand. Right. Uh, so much of the work that we do is call it communications coaching with the, with the uh, CEO, uh, you know, beforehand to make sure that that actually happens. And it's sometimes frustrating. You know, uh, we learned the hard way many, many years ago, uh, that if you don't do that sometimes the expectations might be a little bit off. And getting the retreat packet, if you will, uh, three or four days or a week or so before the event is not the time when you want to say, okay, now I'm in retreat mode as a participant or as a leader, there's several months of work that needs to happen.

Host: Well, uh, if I could answer the question as well. And then we have one from Paul here in the chat. Um, if you're asking what's one thing I could, I would change, I would say that they, the clients come to us are, ah. And they're at different levels of experiences with previous retreats and they have a completely different experience with us. And the fun is in all the Aha's that they have that it could be different and how to train their team differently and facilitate differently. And it's. So it's inspiring for them to see that they could do this so differently. So I personally don't have any wish that they should come to me primed in any different way. It's fun to level them up wherever they are. That's how I feel about it. And as Randall said, they all come from a different culture. So their organizational culture. I would say that for me the disappointment is when companies say we're too busy for a retreat and I feel like they've like lost, they've like lost their memo and lost their purpose and they're too busy, heads down. And it's always good to realign. You know, it's always good to make that time and make the team feel you only have better employee engagement and team retention. If you say this is, it's important. I want to hear from all of you and be with all of you.

Randall Craig: Yeah, good point.

Host: Paul's got a question here in the chat. Is it the chat? You want me to read this question or do you want to ask it?

Speaker C: Well, I want to ask it because I want to give a little bit additional context. Um, this has been a great conversation. Love all the advice that you're uh, giving. It's giving me good things to think about. Um, we've got. I've just recently started to volunteer with a not for profit. Uh, it's a operational board. And uh, we're planning a retreat in September. And the last strategic plan dates from 2019 before the pandemic. The things that our uh, organization works on has changed drastically like many things since the pandemic. I'm wondering, as we think about uh, sort of the time horizon for our new strategic plan, how far forward do we think knowing that life is going to happen and it's going to throw um, twists and turns our way that will um, change what those long term goals might be or should be and what also is feasible. Uh, versus aspirational and uh, so just wanted to get your advice on how we think about those things.

Randall Craig: Wonderful, thank you Paul. And thank you for coming here. Okay. So you know, unlike um, unlike the former Soviet Union, okay. Where they had the five year plan and every five years there was another five year plan and what a surprise, it kind of never really worked. Which is, you know, a bit of a problem. Um, no, um, well, no, no, no, hold one sec. Corporate. We've got three year plans. The strategic plan is every Every three years. Okay. Um, well, Covid AI. I mean, these are like fundamental systemic strikes to the fabric of, of business. Right? It's like all of our assumptions are completely different. And so if we kept with that strategic plan, if we didn't have, uh, you know, but then you say, okay, well, we're going to do the strategic plan every year. Right? And that way I think the bigger question. Well, first of all, let me just say your last strategic plan is in 2019. Thank God that you've got something coming up now that in September you're going to work on a new one. So, so tick box and cookies to you, Paul. That's excellent. Okay. Um, I'll say as a sidebar that hopefully before that meeting you got a whole bunch of committees working on aspects of it. So that when you actually hit the strategic planning work, uh, day at, at your retreat, uh, you're going to have an awful lot of raw material and people engage who thought deeply about aspects of it, right. So that the actual conversations are one that are, are thoughtful and, and useful and everything. Uh, the strategic planning retreat, if you will, uh, all the work happens beforehand it all and if you don't, it, it, it's, it's more a, uh, function of luck, frankly. Uh, during the day, I don't think I'm saying much of a surprise to most people who've done this kind of thing. Uh, if it's a volunteer board, um, it's a bit more challenging to actually have them working on things beforehand. But, but there are things that they can and should be working on. And frankly, if you've got a, you've got a, a facilitator who's more than just a facilitator that actually knows about strategic planning, um, perhaps they can be engaged to do some of that work beforehand as well if the volunteers can. Or maybe there's an executive director if it's a volunteer organization whose staff can do some of that prep work. Right. And it's a significant amount. The idea of having individuals involved in it means that they become more engaged. So back to your question about, uh, is it rigid or evergreen? Um, I think what's more important is building in the capability of an organization to be agile. Right. And, and if you're able to build that in, okay. Then you're able to say, okay, well, um, as things happen in the marketplace, as things happen in the greater sort of macroeconomic environment, okay. As local things happen with competitors or, or members, clients, whoever your stakeholders are, uh, we've got enough flex and not because the plan is this big amorphous blob. Okay? But we've got more flex in terms of, um, the ability to actually pivot towards whatever it is or take advantage of whatever it is within the construct of the strategic plan itself. Um, so I like the idea of three year plans. I like the idea of a rolling kind of thing where there's a review of where that is. Obviously the idea of what are the measures to. So that at the board level you can sort of see that the, that uh, that you're moving towards. Those are pretty important. Um, sometimes what will happen is you'll do a strategic plan one year, say this September in your case, and the next year, uh, you don't do a strategic plan. You might have a segment of it where it's a review of it. Okay? But maybe what you do is you have a segment where you're focused on scenarios and scenario planning. Okay. Last year this is what we did. Let's examine a bunch of scenarios. How does the plan flex in case this scenario happens or this scenario happens or that scenario happens? You know, and, and that gets people thinking. This is the kind of thing that can build that agility in a certain sense. Um, um, hopefully when you're doing the strategic planning, you are doing some scenario planning right from the outset. Right. So it's, it's not a surprise anyway, um, what else can I say? Um, I, I think that uh, the sort of forever evergreen plan is and, and is really not a plan at all. It's kind of like an excuse not to sort of set goals that the management, even if it's an operational board, um, that the management, uh, does not aim towards, you know, for, for a while a big hairy audacious goal was a big thing, you know, then it became, well, let's choose our North Star and then let everybody head towards that. Right? I mean that's, that's what a strategic plan is designed to do and then translate into tactics. Sometimes, for example, the strategic plan is going fairly well. So therefore what you do is you say, well the next year we're not going to really spend time examining the strategic plan, but what we're going to do is we're going to spend time brainstorming on specific tactics or maybe the strategic plan during the year. You've noticed that there was a little bit of, uh, there's weak signals identifying a particular issue. So you say, you know, we're going to use part of the retreat to actually do this brainstorming, uh, and some innovation work. Specifically around what those weak signals might be portending. Right. So, so there's a whole bunch of different ways of addressing it. Interestingly, if you do what I just last suggested, um, that sort of helps animate the, the, the question about is the strategic plan actually still relevant? Do we need to as a board make some slight changes to it based on our conversation about what the tactics are or, or uh, what the um, the, the innovation work around the uh, uh, around the weak signals or or so on? Like there's a whole bunch of different ways of handling that one. But I, I think that getting the people involved in that, uh, in a way, you know, is like, that's a good thing. The other thing, since you're, you're talking about board, you know, there's the board meetings that happen periodically, etc, there's the big strategic planning retreat where you set that direction and everything. But sometimes, uh, sometimes particularly for boards, there's um, a concept of a board education day where you say, listen, these board, these directors, they, they all have other roles, other jobs, you know, etc, but we still need to build alignment. So what we can do is we're going to invest in them and we're going to do, you know, twice a year, say, or maybe just once a year if, if you don't have the funding and we're going to bring them together and we're going to get, you know, people like us in to spend the day with everybody, to upskill them in, in stuff that helps make the board as a group more effective. Sometimes it's a question of saying, okay, let's upskill in the way of, of innovation. Sometimes it's, okay, let's do more governance training. Uh, okay. Sometimes it's a question of decision making. Sometimes it's a question of examining things like culture or maybe some externality, for example, like impact of AI or, or name the other things that, that seem to be hot these days. Right. So, so, you know, this isn't a retreat in the strategic planning sense. What it does say is, hey, we do think that it's important to invest in our board members and we want to do it in a strategic way so that after several years of this, okay, we're building um, an internal, um, knowledge bench strength. So that's the uh, that, that, that's, that's the. Paul, has this been helpful?

Speaker C: Yes, thank you, Paul.

Host: If you want a couple more ideas, I can share my thoughts when, when you asked your question about strategic plan. I think in a, in a previous one of these monthly sessions, we Talked about strategic plan and I sort of laughed about this word because a strategy is not a plan. A plan is not a strategy. Right. And what people have, companies think that they have strategy, but they don't. They have either a, ah, plan or a series of plans. And that's why there's panic when like things change. Right. And what we really need to have is a strategy that's antifragile. And the more you can set up your team for lots of new learning, the more that network of ideas and experiences will feed into their decision making and you get a smarter, faster, as Rhino said, more agile, um, team that makes better decisions and more strategic decisions. Um, I want to talk about alcohol at a retreat. Okay. So this is no judgment on people who, on drinking alcohol. It's legal, people socialize, they drink alcohol. But we're talking about pre work, post work, talking about three months out. Was it successful? Randall? We have been at retreats where people are, um, it's a huge part of how they enjoy each other and make it fun and celebrate together. They're drinking alcohol and then they are complaining outwardly with sunglasses on that they are hungover the next day. And we've been hired to be their bright eyed and she tail to come and energize them and engage them and have those conversations. Meanwhile, the leadership team, this is the leaders are, are, stay, are, are uh, up past their bedtimes and not coming in fresh. Right. So it's an interesting question. If we're talking about role modeling and corporate culture, I think that a lot of people try to lean into like we're young and we're cool and we're fun and you see a lot of them that, on LinkedIn. But if people are here to get a job done and we want to have values of professionalism, uh, you know, strategic minded, all these things. Like what do you. I think there should be what, like juice. So.

Randall Craig: Yeah, so. So it's a fascinating conversation that we would not have had, uh, say five or ten years ago. Um, uh, we would not have had the conversation. Okay. Uh, I think today is an interesting one. There's entire cultures that did not drink. Okay. We want to be inclusive and we don't want to make them sort of feel outward, whatever. Um, we got to recognize that there's some people that for health reasons, you know, they, they're really not interested in drinking either. Okay. But we also have to recognize that, that drinking is kind of part of a, a cultural norm and that if people have a little booze in them, they tend to loosen up. Right. Um, drinking with one's colleagues in some organizations is absolutely part of the culture. Okay? Whatever you may personally. Not you, but whatever one may personally think about it. And, and, but I think what's interesting

Host: is we don't need to touch the ongoing culture. They can drink together Friday night, go for, uh, uh, the lunch, have a drink at the bar. But at the retreat, Randall, you and I try to role model. We are here to work. Here to work. They're spending so much money, you know, at the retreat itself.

Randall Craig: Huh.

Host: And I think it's very nice and very, you know, 20, 25. They're talking about inclusivity and diversity. I'm talking about making money. I'm talking about growing a business, having people eyes on the ball.

Randall Craig: Yeah, it's true. And, and you know what? For a lot of people, and I'm not explaining away or, or advocating one. One thing or the other, but I think for a lot of people, if they have a little bit of booze in them or they're going through the process of drinking with their people, it makes them feel less inhibited enough to have more, um, deeper conversations. Okay? Believe me, I can argue the exact opposite case too, that people say the most ridiculous things and embarrass themselves and they shouldn't have opened their mouth and so, um, on and so forth. And this is an individual judgment issue, okay? And the judgment is, is, is impaired. But on the other hand, people are more open, okay? So it's a real, real issue. You know, for us, you know, we, we roll with the punches. Okay? Um, you know, you know, for me, I'll, I'll certainly, uh, spend, uh, time with, with the people at the, at the bar afterwards, after the dinner, etc, because that's part of the conversations that are actually highly, highly valuable. But, you know, for, for, for me, for, for Rania, um, we're kind of on the job, right? And uh, you know, other than a social glass of wine or, or whatever, it's very, it's very hard to justify for us, right? And believe me, you know, um, having somebody come in, um, hungover the next day, uh, just because they had too much, uh, the CEO knows, notices that, and they likely know that CEO also

Host: has her sunglasses on.

Randall Craig: Uh, then we got a bit of a, you know, we've got some modeling that's happening and there's no surprise why, why everybody else is.

Host: We could do a whole session next time just on role modeling and consciously doing that and, and prepping everybody for that to be their best selves.

Randall Craig: I, I think, I think it's an issue that, that is a good conversation to have, but I also think that it's culturally something that's really a challenge. Uh, it's just, just another way, no other way to do that. Uh, just to say that it's a challenge for us. We got to roll with the punches and, and the people in the room that we're facilitating that were, that were breaking up into groups that we're doing the upskilling. Uh, honestly, it's, it's. We have the people that we have. Right. And, and uh, and you know, kindly take off your sunglasses. You know,

Host: thank you for all the kind compliments in the chat here. Thank you to everyone who, who uh, shared their expectations and ideas. I want to offer Randall's booking link and I want to offer his phone number. Oh, anybody wants to speak with me or with Randall. Let, uh, me, let me grab that and throw it in here.

Randall Craig: Okay. If, if anybody wants to have a one on one conversation with this or if you're planning a retreat, uh, and, and it's all going, but things are not going so well, you just need somebody to, you know, get some perspective on, just, just book some timer. I'm happy to answer if you're thinking of doing a retreat in the future and you're concerned about whether you're going to, uh, whether you're on the right track, or maybe you want to talk about how to go about doing it, or maybe you need to change it up one way or the other. Happy to spend 15 minutes answering your questions. Okay. Obviously if we can help, uh, you know, we'd love you to sort of knock on the door for that too. But, but this link, um. Oh, you gave my phone number too. If there's something that's urgent, that's an emergency, pick up the phone. Okay. Uh, I answer my phone, Ronnie answers her phone. Uh, we're here for, for our, uh, uh, for our brain trust community. And if you're new here and we haven't actually met you personally, then it's wonderful to see you. So, um, yeah, yep, I'm happy to spend 15 minutes with anybody.

Host: So it was lovely meeting all of you. Thank you for staying for the after party. I love these conversations. I think they're super important. I think how we change an organization, you know, from the top, the leadership, the role modeling, all the ingredients that go into your retreat. And, and as we start at the top of the hour, you know, what is the culture we want, what are the brand values that we want to infuse in the retreat. If any of the issues we talked about resonate with you, if you're considering organizing your next dealership leadership retreat, if you want our perspective, if you want our input, we'd be happy to share resources and have a conversation. You can reach out to, uh, us@podcast randall craig.com or connect with us on LinkedIn. So looking forward to seeing you next time.