Team Off-Sites

It may be your idea, but you can’t do it all alone.

Your team is one of the most important ingredients to both your success as a leader and to the success of the company. Many ventures fall short because the team doesn’t work well together or is lacking the processes to work through their dilemmas. Even if you bring technically competent, committed people together to focus on a problem, interpersonal issues can prevent you from getting the support of other stakeholders or hitting your milestones.

Team-buildings or off-sites can mean different things to different people. For some, it means going off on an adventure to build camaraderie. Or perhaps the team engages in a ropes course experience, or a scavenger hunt. These are all worthwhile especially if debriefed well. I’ve led and participated in rope course events and enjoyed and benefited from them, too.

Our tack is a bit different and focuses on insights into team dynamics, on conversations to move through challenging topics, and/or on new applicable information to strengthen an already smooth-running team or bolster a team that is not firing on all cylinders. We encourage fun along the way.

Some off-the-shelf designs work for teams looking for new information and to refresh their abilities. Some require more advance thinking. The process for that follows.

Process:


  • Interview team lead and designated team members as needed to discover what is working and what needs attention.

  • Summarize team findings and present to the team leader.

  • Define together what a successful outcome looks like.

  • Identify key components that lead to successful conclusion.

  • Choose models and processes that address the issues.

  • Facilitate the meeting.

  • Hold follow-up conversation within a month to debrief the off-site.


Reasons for off-sites:

  • Integrating new team members

  • Kickstarting a team *New manager assimilation

  • Improving communication processes

  • Defining mission/objectives/strategy/tactics

  • Problem-solving

  • Clarifying roles and responsibilities

  • Learning new models for understanding the personalities on the team

  • Taking the team from forming to storming to norming to performing over time

Meg Ellis Uncategorized