What would you plan for a one day future leaders offsite?
An offsite has to be balanced
One of our favourite sessions we get to run with our clients are their offsites. These company retreats can be anything from a business unit gathering in a conference centre to a more intimate program for their future leaders.
One of the challenges from Day 1: Scavenger Hunt of a business unit gathering offsite.
In this article, I am going to lay out exactly what I would do for a one day* future leaders retreat. This plan would work for 10-80 people. It will be a great day, but before diving into the plan, it’s worth mentioning a couple of challenges which you are likely facing as you put together these two days:
Stakeholders: the people team have plans; the senior managers have opinions; the CFO has a changing budget - the right plan needs to make everyone happy.
What vibe do we want: we’ve all been to dreary company away days with a senior partner over running their explanation of the company culture. I’d argue this two days should centre around people buying into the culture, feeling like they belong and that they have a bright future ahead of them.
Skills… fun… culture… team building… : yep, I think we should incorporate the lot! Read on and I’ll share how we do it.
*If you’re interested in what we would do to cover two days, please get in touch.
Start with the company values
Scavenger Hunt
Why are values so important? They form the backbone of the organisational culture. When we start the offsite with this, it gives the future leaders the opportunity to see, “this is how things are done around here.”
Check out this resources page to see our take on why values are so important.
A scavenger hunt is a game where individuals or teams race against a time limit to gather, complete, or photograph a specific list of items or tasks.
The scavenger hunt is genuinely the most fun we ever have with teams. Alongside the people team, we take the company values, create challenges and transform them into challenges.
Below, I have added an example of company values cards which we have used in a two day offsite with one of our clients (some words have been changed for anonymity). They are a global FMCG which sells a household brand and together with the people team, we designed some challenges to bring the team closer together, and to get them thinking about the company they work for!
My top tip: do the challenge outdoors and give it the time it deserves. I’d recommend allowing for about three hours to introduce, complete and come back for awards.
Get people feeling good with self-awareness
Clifton Strengths Session
Jack delivering a Clifton Strengths Session for a Junior Lawyers program in South East Asia.
We’d strongly recommend in investing into a Clifton Strengths Session for your offsite. If you want to know more about Clifton Strengths, you can read the article here.
A Clifton Strengths workshop is perfect for Day 1 because:
It puts people in a really positive mood - who doesn’t like to read about what they’re good at!?
It builds self awareness which is typical gap between future leaders current abilities and their potential.
It ticks that all important box of “it can’t just be fun!” Although we promise you that Clifton Strengths is a lot of fun.
It will provide a shared language for the future leaders to converse in: “oh, you’re an Activator, I need to make sure I interact with you like this!”
Not every future leader is a loud and outgoing extrovert
Painting
This is a classic mistake, and one we see all to often. Someone will plan a great sounding couple of days: Scavenger Hunts; Workshops; Presentation Skills; Team Building; Rooftop Drinks and more! However, this plan is forgetting one critical thing… not everybody is at their best in these environments.
Painting your priorities.
It’s all too common to hear some senior leaders finishing up a presentation and workshop with the future leaders, only to say, “I really liked James because he asked so many questions and really took charge of the room. I wasn’t sure about Charlie though, he seemed pretty quiet.”
The problem is, not every future leader is going to stand up and do a Barack Obama style speech every time the next activity starts. We are all different, all leaders are different, and therefore, we should plan the two days accordingly.
What has worked really well for us in the past is painting. You should choose a topic for the painting, a few examples of what we have done in the past are:
Paint your priorities: each team receives a tote bag and has to paint their interpretation of their priorities for the next 12 months in their role. This is good to do with future leaders once they’re settled into the organisation.
Paint the company values: this works well with a larger group. Split the room into six teams. Each team gets one canvas and has to paint their interpretation of one of the company values. Before beginning, each team captain takes their canvas and meets in the middle of the room. The captains must discuss how their individual paintings will join together to form one giant painting. This looks great hung up on the wall afterwards.
Extending to two days
Deepen what you’ve already done
If you would like to extend it to two days, I would recommend deepening the great work you already did on day one:
Team building: there are many fun options out there such as the spaghetti and marshmallow tower
Skill building: do a second Clifton Strengths session - this time pointed towards a particular business challenge. For example, “how can our strengths help us to communicate better with external stakeholders.”
Senior stakeholder participation: with more time, I’d recommend getting some senior stakeholders to run two hours of the workshop. They could bring in case studies, role plays and trainings.
Finally, I’d recommend sprinkling in some magic for the two days, here are some of our typical ideas:
Guest speaker
Participation stamp / prize collection
Polaroid camera wall
So that’s it. Our one day plan for running a successful future leaders offsite. If you have any questions, ideas or want to work with us, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
