As we move into the end of October, attention turns quickly to year-end events for teams. To give you some ideas, I thought I would dedicate this week’s Flashback Friday to a post I have shared before.
Here’s what I wrote in:
#Teams365 #1389: #FlashBackFriday: 4 Best Practices for Year-End Team Retreats
Here’s what I wrote as I shared a previous LinkedIn Pulse post entitled "4 Best Practices for Year-End Team Retreats". The post was geared to anyone who is starting to think about what your year-end retreat can look like.
“It’s that time of year for parties, year-end team retreats and other events. Are you maximizing the amount of time and impact of these team events?
Having supported year-end programming for teams and organizations for many years I thought it would be useful to share four focus areas you may want to consider as you start preparing, planning and perhaps facilitating your year-end processes.
Number One — What’s the purpose? If you had to distill down the top two or three takeaways from the retreat process or that off site, what is it? The purpose of our year-end function can impact the structure and activities undertaken in the program.
Is the purpose of your year-end event:
Number Two — What is the connection to the business? Think about what is the connection to the business. It’s still very common in today’s world for people to just go through the motions of a traditional annual year end party and /or event.
Are you really maximizing that investment of bringing people together?
Could you build into that luncheon a half-day session before or after, to do some work with your staff teams to support their development, to help them look at their skills and strengths and styles and also to share with them, you know, and help them connect to the link with your business.
What opportunities do you have already formalized for bringing people together at year-end? What changes or additions do you want to make?
Number Three — Do you want to do it all alone? Many organizations today have a committee and amongst that committee membership, there may be some members who would be very comfortable in facilitating your year-end team or organizational process.
So, think about who might be best equipped to do the work? Is it you, members of that committee or maybe you are interested in bringing in an external facilitator?
One of the things we do, is either we come in and facilitate or develop activities which you can facilitate yourself.
Think about how you might be able to leverage the resources you have and or bring in some special guest speakers or external resources to contribute to the environment that you want to create.
Number Four — How are you going to take this forward? One of the biggest challenges that we see in learning and development today is this continued lack of transferability to the work place.
This was what drew me to focus more on the area of Coaching which places an ongoing emphasis on accountability and transferability to the workplace.
One the things I like to encourage organizations that I partner with to always thinking about is – How will you sustain the conversation? How will you take this forward into your work?
Hopefully any year-end retreat process or year-end meeting will have an action step and a very formalized action planning stage. Remember to build in time in the new year to revisit your commitments and accountabilities.
Here’s a quick recap:
Number One - Think about the purpose. What are the top three or four reasons or things that you want people to take away?
Number Two - What’s the link of the year-end program to the business? Is it just to have fun or something else?
Number Three - As your approaching your year-end processes, is this something you want to do or do you want to bring in a facilitator? A third option perhaps is to have something designed for you, so you can facilitate it yourself.
And finally, Number Four. What are the takeaways? How will people sustain the conversation? When will you check in on your actions and commitments?”
Have a great weekend!
Jennifer
Here’s what I wrote in:
#Teams365 #1389: #FlashBackFriday: 4 Best Practices for Year-End Team Retreats
Here’s what I wrote as I shared a previous LinkedIn Pulse post entitled "4 Best Practices for Year-End Team Retreats". The post was geared to anyone who is starting to think about what your year-end retreat can look like.
“It’s that time of year for parties, year-end team retreats and other events. Are you maximizing the amount of time and impact of these team events?
Having supported year-end programming for teams and organizations for many years I thought it would be useful to share four focus areas you may want to consider as you start preparing, planning and perhaps facilitating your year-end processes.
Number One — What’s the purpose? If you had to distill down the top two or three takeaways from the retreat process or that off site, what is it? The purpose of our year-end function can impact the structure and activities undertaken in the program.
Is the purpose of your year-end event:
- to build connection?
- to share important information?
- do some goal planning?
- to build understanding across the silos, that may exist within your organization?
Number Two — What is the connection to the business? Think about what is the connection to the business. It’s still very common in today’s world for people to just go through the motions of a traditional annual year end party and /or event.
Are you really maximizing that investment of bringing people together?
Could you build into that luncheon a half-day session before or after, to do some work with your staff teams to support their development, to help them look at their skills and strengths and styles and also to share with them, you know, and help them connect to the link with your business.
What opportunities do you have already formalized for bringing people together at year-end? What changes or additions do you want to make?
Number Three — Do you want to do it all alone? Many organizations today have a committee and amongst that committee membership, there may be some members who would be very comfortable in facilitating your year-end team or organizational process.
So, think about who might be best equipped to do the work? Is it you, members of that committee or maybe you are interested in bringing in an external facilitator?
One of the things we do, is either we come in and facilitate or develop activities which you can facilitate yourself.
Think about how you might be able to leverage the resources you have and or bring in some special guest speakers or external resources to contribute to the environment that you want to create.
Number Four — How are you going to take this forward? One of the biggest challenges that we see in learning and development today is this continued lack of transferability to the work place.
This was what drew me to focus more on the area of Coaching which places an ongoing emphasis on accountability and transferability to the workplace.
One the things I like to encourage organizations that I partner with to always thinking about is – How will you sustain the conversation? How will you take this forward into your work?
Hopefully any year-end retreat process or year-end meeting will have an action step and a very formalized action planning stage. Remember to build in time in the new year to revisit your commitments and accountabilities.
Here’s a quick recap:
Number One - Think about the purpose. What are the top three or four reasons or things that you want people to take away?
Number Two - What’s the link of the year-end program to the business? Is it just to have fun or something else?
Number Three - As your approaching your year-end processes, is this something you want to do or do you want to bring in a facilitator? A third option perhaps is to have something designed for you, so you can facilitate it yourself.
And finally, Number Four. What are the takeaways? How will people sustain the conversation? When will you check in on your actions and commitments?”
Have a great weekend!
Jennifer
Jennifer Britton – Potentials Realized
Leadership | Teamwork | Business Success
Author of multiple books including Effective Virtual Conversations (2017), PlanDoTrack (2019) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013)
Follow along with the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series over at Instagram @CoachingBizBuilder
Join the conversation at the Conversation Sparker Zone - our online community where you can explore virtual and team issues, coaching, productivity and business development.
Pick up a copy of Volume 1 of the Weekly Journaling Prompts in a digital format. Print it out and take it with you for some inspiration and writing on the go! Available at the Potentials Realized Store.
For those looking for tips, tools and ideas about remote work and support for your remote teams, be sure to check out these tags and resources.
Leadership | Teamwork | Business Success
Author of multiple books including Effective Virtual Conversations (2017), PlanDoTrack (2019) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013)
Follow along with the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series over at Instagram @CoachingBizBuilder
Join the conversation at the Conversation Sparker Zone - our online community where you can explore virtual and team issues, coaching, productivity and business development.
Pick up a copy of Volume 1 of the Weekly Journaling Prompts in a digital format. Print it out and take it with you for some inspiration and writing on the go! Available at the Potentials Realized Store.
For those looking for tips, tools and ideas about remote work and support for your remote teams, be sure to check out these tags and resources.
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