5 Ways to Use a Retreat to Improve Teams

Optimize Your Next Team Retreat by Planning for Results

A successful team commits to a common vision, comes together to solve problems, and agrees to hold one another accountable for results. A team retreat, whether virtual or in-person, is a great way to lay the groundwork and cultivate effective team behaviors that lead to better team engagement. 

If done well, a retreat can promote an environment of trust and build team members’ skills so they can openly address strengths, challenges, and ways to work together better.

Team retreats are a creative and productive way to build more effective teams or begin the process of onboarding a new leader to set the team up for success. Retreats can build stronger connections, strengthen the team’s communication, and unite team members around shared goals. 

Here are five ways to make sure your team retreat is a win for each team member and the organization:

1. Gain buy-in from senior leaders: Before even getting started, ensure senior leadership is on board and demonstrates buy-in. Results won’t last if the team returns to the office primed for change and encounters the same silos or roadblocks.

2. Set the stage for openness and vulnerability: Through an opening exercise or keynote address—ideally led by key stakeholders or senior leadership—demonstrate that success is only achieved with honesty and openness. What happens at the retreat stays at the retreat. When titles are set aside, collaboration happens.

3. Use tools, not gimmicks: Every team has something holding it back. It may be a lack of trust or poor relationships. It may be poor leadership or lack of commitment. Deal with it head-on by providing a learning environment and deploying a proven assessment. Only after dealing with difficult issues can a team truly create trust, accountability, and results. 

4. Use an outside facilitator to investigate relationships: A fresh set of eyes and ears can observe things that are brewing below the surface. Facilitators can prompt important discussions by asking key questions, helping move conversations forward, and identifying key learning points for the team that might not otherwise be addressed.

5. Don’t forget about results: You were put together as a team because you have something to accomplish. Re-establish a focus on the outcomes you are working towards—but don’t skip the groundwork. See that the big picture is painted in vivid color so that each team member sees they are part of a much bigger whole and understands the team won’t make it there if they don’t all have trust, the ability to navigate conflict, a commitment to results, and a way to hold each other accountable

 Photo by Sean Thomas on Unsplash