Management retreats, Board of Directors meetings and strategy planning sessions are common practices in almost every business. They can range from intense, creative, and disciplined approaches to recreational getaways, and everywhere along that continuum. Our challenge to you and your management team is “How effective are your annual planning retreats, considering the resources (time, money and people) devoted to them?”

That question can only be answered first with another question, “What are your objectives for the retreat?” Team building and cohesiveness is a common and valuable goal, and that alone is worthwhile. But when you consider the resource invested, how could you be creating more value?

Our experience, from a career of participating in and facilitating of many strategy planning retreats, is that the outcome value can be greatly enhanced, and downright game-changing, by adding some structure to the retreat by utilizing outside facilitators.

Ask yourselves again, are you getting maximum ROI for the resources invested to prepare, execute, and follow up on those retreats?

Consider these questions as a management team:

Are the retreats a formality? An excuse to get away for fun? Are they compliant and mandatory? Is it an award? Are the participants aligned on this purpose?
Are conscious decisions and direction guiding us, or do we rely on habit and inertia to move us forward?
Are we looking at the right end of problems? Do we approach the business challenges from the same, myopic perspective?
Are we allocating the business’ resources consistent with our goals? Do we effectively evaluate product and service offerings as individual cost centers?
Are there pet projects, sacred cows, missed opportunities, deteriorating or threatened revenue streams that are not moving us into the future? Are they in effect a drain on resources and stalling our growth?
Is the dialogue at our retreats impartial, non-judgmental, and open? Fact-based conversations vs opinion sharing? Do we understand each other’s communication styles and personalities?
Are we having hard, honest conversations? Is healthy conflict embraced by the team?
How well prepared are we to debate serious business issues of today and the future—market possibilities, product opportunities, competitive analysis—all supported with data?
Do team members come prepared and is the workload spread among participants? Does everyone contribute?
Do we come away with an aligned, executable game plan? Do clear actions and initiatives come out of the time spent and how are they managed to throughout the year?

Is your planning session doing all of this for you? If so, great job! If you are missing the mark, how would you like them to be different? In either case, consider utilizing outside facilitators to enhance your experience and ROI by asking these direct questions to your team.

Author

Rob Swette

Rob Swette is Managing Partner, Sales Growth Associates, a center for Sandler Training. Rob is a member of Convene Group 33 in San Diego. Rob works with organizations that are committed to improving and creating the best sales teams they can through training, coaching and consulting.

To learn more about Rob Swette and Sales Growth Associates, LLC, click here.

Joe LaRussa

Before becoming a Convene Chair, Joe gained thirty years of business experience in the construction and real estate development industries. After gaining much knowledge he started his own construction company, growing the business from a specialized subcontracting business into multiple entities.

To learn more about his coaching practice and connect with Joe, view his profile or email him: jlarussa@convenenow.com