An Amazing Team Retreat

In ear­ly Octo­ber, we had our sec­ond team retreat in Whistler, after adding three new advi­sors this year. Because we work almost com­plete­ly vir­tu­al­ly, this is when – in addi­tion to work on our strate­gic plan for the next year — we build and strength­en our bonds with each oth­er and induct new team members.

Since we’re part of so many retreats and annu­al plan­ning ses­sions for our clients, you’d think that peo­ple who do this for a liv­ing would be in one of two camps: the cobbler’s kids who don’t have any shoes (a sound strate­gic plan), or advi­sors who are under­whelmed by the process.

In fact, it was the opposite.

Our team was over-the-top excit­ed to par­tic­i­pate in the expe­ri­ence, activ­i­ties and bond­ing moments. They all want­ed to show and share their best skills, tools and tech­niques – some of which blew my mind – so that we were all stronger and sharp­er with knowl­edge and skills. It was very inter­est­ing to be a par­tic­i­pant, on the receiv­ing end for a change, as dif­fer­ent mem­bers of the team led us through dif­fer­ent exer­cis­es – includ­ing updat­ing our Mas­ter Plans. If you’re not famil­iar with it, the Mas­ter Plan (Chap­ter 17 of Your Oxy­gen Mask First, Plan, Plan and Plan Again) is your per­son­al strate­gic plan to focus on what is most impor­tant to you, for the next one, three,10 and 50 years.

I espe­cial­ly want to acknowl­edge that the peo­ple on our admin team, who are as crit­i­cal to serv­ing and build­ing rela­tion­ships with our clients to bet­ter under­stand what they need, as our advisors.

Everyone’s will­ing spir­it, gen­eros­i­ty and sense of fun and spon­tane­ity eased the hard work and drew us even clos­er togeth­er. Tru­ly, it was a mas­ter class on how to be a great advi­sor, and I have no doubt that we all emerged with new skills and insights that can only ben­e­fit our work with clients, mov­ing forward.

Most impor­tant­ly, those three days togeth­er enhanced everyone’s life and/​or skills in some notable way. And I came away inspired by this pas­sion­ate team, val­i­dat­ed by the work we do and con­fi­dent in our abil­i­ty to help more clients and to build the kind of com­pa­ny we envision.

Here are five things that made this retreat high­ly impactful:

1. The right phys­i­cal envi­ron­ment. We stayed in an amaz­ing 12-bed­room house/​retreat cen­tre togeth­er for two days that helped us to get to know each oth­er – and work togeth­er — better.
2. Com­pet­i­tive and col­lab­o­ra­tive activ­i­ties. We split into two teams in a fun spir­it of com­pe­ti­tion, and on-the-spot five-minute team-build­ing exer­cis­es made us laugh so much we were prac­ti­cal­ly crying.
3. Open­ing and clos­ing cer­e­monies. Ours were designed to wel­come and ini­ti­ate new team mem­bers and includ­ed hilar­i­ous performances.
4. A team activ­i­ty to ben­e­fit the out­side com­mu­ni­ty. Ours real­ly stretched our per­son­al com­fort lev­els, too.
5. Oppor­tu­ni­ties for every­one on the team to show­case their tal­ents and teach oth­ers new tech­niques to be more effec­tive. Our team mem­bers took turns facil­i­tat­ing dif­fer­ent aspects of work and social activities.

The Chal­lenge

• When you bring your team togeth­er, what can you do to lever­age the time to cre­ate the biggest impact?

Addi­tion­al Resources

• If you’d like a copy of our team retreat agen­da, please let us know.
• Here’s a link to a video we cre­at­ed to walk teams through a Mas­ter Plan.

Addi­tion­al Podcasts

Episode 90 — The Annu­al Strate­gic Plan­ning Meeting

Episode 85 – Get the Most from Your Strate­gic Plan­ning Framework

Episode 124 – 5 Things that Lead to a Bad Strate­gic Plan

Addi­tion­al Blogs

Quar­ter­ly or Annu­al Plan­ning Themes

Work, Life plan­ning – Plan, Plan and Plan Again

Build­ing an Exec­u­tive Team that Kicks Ass

Lawrence & Co’s work focus­es on sus­tain­able and enhanced growth for you and your busi­ness. Our diverse and expe­ri­enced group of advi­sors can help your lead­ers and exec­u­tive teams stay com­pet­i­tive through the use of var­i­ous learn­ing tools includ­ing work­shops, webi­na­rs, exec­u­tive retreats, or one-to-one coaching.

We help high-achiev­ing lead­ers to have it all – a great busi­ness and a reward­ing life. Con­tact us for sim­ple and impact­ful advice. No BS. No fluff.