A retreat can be a powerful leadership tool for launching sustainable behavior change
Once asked to facilitate a small content session as part of a leadership retreat, I was surprised to see some partners from the professional service firm arrive after lunch with large welts on their foreheads. Seeing the look on my face, someone explained. As a teambuilding exercise, convenors thought that a group of middle-aged leaders of varying fitness levels would build a sense of unity around a lively paintball competition. I realized then that people often don’t quite know what to do with a retreat.
Getting away from regular day-to-day activity and interruptions, and having some out-of-the-box experience in itself can be useful, and may be your ultimate goal. Yet considering the substantial resource investment, in terms of billable hours and units of salary, and related costs, I’d love to encourage everyone to think more strategically about the opportunity of a leadership retreat to be a focal point for launching significant exploration, learning and lasting change in how people think, operate and what’s possible together.
A question to consider is, do you want more time for the conversations you are already having? Or, do you want to have a new conversation? A conversation you have not yet been able to have - a deep inquiry you have not yet had with these people?
Are you seeking to alter what’s possible together? Shift the energy and how people view their roles, the team or organization, and how they collaborate and act?
If you want to have the second conversation, consider a Transformational Leadership Retreat. This type of retreat is so powerful, colleagues and I have trained others in our methodology.
Utilizing a 6-question coaching model, we collaborate with leaders to create what is essentially a coaching intervention with a group.
Just as an executive coaching engagement begins with extreme clarity about desired outcomes, we collaborate with leadership to clarify the urgency for the shift, and measurable outcomes. If the retreat was a huge success, what would have happened? What would you see? What behavior changes would be experienced? What’s the longer-term goal?
If you are not in touch with the urgency, it is unlikely others will be. Your clarity about what you want to see will impact the clarity of others, and inform how you speak about the retreat, how others speak and how you operate. One client we worked with wanted, among other things, a higher magnitude of enthusiasm, collaboration and creativity, and to transform the reputation of her unit, for example.
We then gather the data and input to understand how best to prepare participants to support their engagement in the inquiry and in co-creating the outcomes. We co-create the activities, learning and conversations to cultivate the desired mindset and behavior shifts as well as the practices, actions and structures that support sustainable progress and success. And, we incorporate fun with no injuries! Too often our task-oriented environments inhibit the ability to cultivate this level of reflection and meaning.
This process has resulted in unpredictable outcomes for leaders and their organizations and a way of operating together that continues to evolve in strength. We can share examples and case studies.
Is this something that you are thinking about and need? Let’s have a conversation.
Jackie Sloane works with leaders to bring out the best in themselves and others and to create transformational interventions and retreats for public sector, Fortune 1000, privately-held and not-for-profit entities. Do you need a transformational retreat, or transformational change? Contact Jackie Sloane
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