Awaydays (aka off-sites) can fail in lots of interesting ways. Some of the most catastrophic are talked about for years afterwards: alcohol may have been involved… 🙂
But many more awaydays fail in a dull way. They’re just boring. They achieve pretty much nothing. And that means they’re a huge waste of time and money.
Honestly, when it comes to awaydays, dull is the default. Small talk with colleagues you barely know. Endless unreadable powerpoint slides. Annoying “team building” activities.
As my colleague Joseph Badman explains here, “Awaydays are a rare opportunity to bring people together, in a room, to understand one another and the challenges they face and to imagine their future, together.”
And as Joe says, “This doesn’t happen by accident. In fact, it’s hard. To be meaningful, away days need to be designed with participation and psychological safety in mind. They need to create an environment that enables many voices, and not just the few, to be heard. They also need to be fun without invoking memories of David Brent.”
Joe’s 5 tips in that article are solid. But to put them into action as an awayday organiser, you’ll need to be brave and, as early in the process as you possibly can, take these three steps.
- Get clear about what the awayday is intended to achieve. That might mean interviewing multiple stakeholders – and perhaps challenging what they say. For example, if the boss says he wants to share some numbers with the team, there’s a big “so what?” What does he want the team to actually do? What result is he looking for? He could easily send the numbers in an email, so why is it worth spending all that time and money to have an awayday?
- Challenge the way it’s usually done. If information needs to be shared, there’s got to be a better way than unreadable powerpoint! If team members need to get to know each other better, will small talk or games actually achieve what’s wanted? Asking the tough questions early in the planning process will avoid wasted effort (and associated costs).
- Design and plan for active participation. People get bored when they’re passive – being talked at, for example. The more actively engaged they are, the more likely they are to rate the awayday a success. Create a day with lots of small-group conversations about concrete topics sot hat everyone has a chance to speak, and a chance to listen. We love Liberating Structures, for example.
And if you think you might need help with any of these, drop me, Steve McCann or Matt Barnaby a message. It’s what we do!