Offsites and Onlines
These offsites, at their core, are about improving the leverage of the leadership team.
The single thing that has the biggest impact on the culture of an organisation is the culture of the leadership team. When the team is not aligned, it infects the whole organisation. And when the leadership team is aligned, the culture is healthy, and everything else just gets better.
So this is where we start.
These offsites, at their core, are about improving the leverage of the leadership team. And while there are more tactical outcomes that will be achieved, this is the biggest benefit of the retreat.
There is also a furphy out there that you cannot create connection, openness and outcomes unless you are face to face. Do you know what the problem really is? The design is flawed and the thinking is old school. Thousands of businesses have been nailing remote for years. We can too. You just need to know how. Lucky Georgia does and has been nailing the remote offsite experience for all.
The session really exceeded my expectations in terms of the way it ran in a virtual environment. This was the first time I have invested the time to reflect on myself in a while and there are some clear takeaways and learnings.
The problem with retreats
They don’t address the real problems in the team
Too much is packed into the agenda and it’s more like a task list
The loudest voice wins and we don’t hear from everyone
We think making time with each other creates connection
We don’t discuss the elephants in the room well enough, or at all
Georgia did a wonderful job to keep everyone engaged in a virtual environment. I also really appreciated her honesty when sharing examples from her own life, it made me feel comfortable doing the same.
Criteria to working together
If you want an offsite that creates connection, elevates your team to a better way of working and gets stuff done then you will resonate with these statements:
We will have a genuine desire to level up – individually and as a team
We are all in – with our time and attention
We are prepared to have the tough conversations – all of them
We are prepared to make decisions in the room – then commit to implementation
The problems you may experience
Our people and teams are operating and making decisions in silos
Our relationship to conflict is unhelpful and hinders performance and progress
We can be unclear on our purpose which creates competing agendas
Our team culture is a little off and needs some work
Georgia managed to engage most of the staff and I was pleasantly surprised that most questions were answered willingly by staff with little prompt as she put everyone at ease and encouraged participation well. It’s a fine balance and she probably did it better than anyone I have seen deliver before – which was no easy task online.
Benefits of the time together
We will make the important, and the right, decisions
Individual self-awareness grows and self-control improves
Accountability becomes clear and easier to do
We end up liking each other again, or even more than before
There’s hardly any work for the sponsor – you dump your issues and we design and facilitate
“Georgia designed and facilitated our Growth Summit, more than 40 Execs across Telstra to gain an understanding of our Growth agenda. Georgia’s tenacity and expert ability to ensure everyone’s voice was heard, which resulted in a 4.8/5 NPS score and more than 40 signatures signed up to agreements to support our Growth agenda. Exceeded our expectations.”
Monique Esplin, General Manager Growth and Strategic Markets at Telstra
“We recently had Georgia at our Leadership Day and I’ve never met someone who could captivate an audience for an entire day “virtually”. Georgia brings high energy, humour and great conversation to the table and our leaders absolutely loved it. We focused on the qualities of high performing teams, our relationship to conflict and connecting with one another. Georgia received some incredible feedback from our leadership group so we decided to have her back again this month to continue to embed the work we covered with her. The leaders can’t wait for this session. I would highly recommend Georgia, her energy is what we all need right now. Thanks so much Georgia!”
Elissa Hitchens, General Manager – Victoria at EML (Employers Mutual Limited) at EML (Employers Mutual Limited)
The structure
PRE DESIGN
- What does success look like? What capabilities do we want to build, what conversations do we need to have, and what outcomes are we looking to achieve? What could get in the way?. Typically a 90 minute zoom with the key sponsors.
- Draft the agenda and send through first version to achieve key outcomes
- Confirm agenda – call with key sponsors to confirm agenda and comms to go out with the participants
- Prep email prepared for the participants – based on design and agenda we draft the prep email to go out to all participants which includes what they should do to prepare, what the agenda will be and what outcomes we’re looking to achieve
- Templates and workbook for the offsite prepared. We’ll create templates for the capabilities we want to build, and provide a workbook to capture our learnings. We’ll also provide one or two relevant books for everyone to take home.
FACILITATION
- A three-day immersive experience that creates connection, builds capability and helps us have the conversations we need to have. One of Georgia’s superpowers is managing all types of personalities to make sure everyone gets airtime and we don’t get off track.
IMPLEMENTATION
- 4-6 weeks after the retreat we’ll get together for 3 hours to review how we’ve gone and what’s needed next. This ‘embedding conversation’ ensures we do what we said we would, so the return on investment is maximised.
I still felt very engaged all day as Georgia maintained a great energy and pace. She was always encouraging of any answer and made participants feel safe to speak up. I really wasn’t sure that could be done until Georgia made it happen (the group are usually very quiet in other online forums). They day went very quick.