Leadership Retreat Facilitation

Align your executive team or board with highly engaging content design, delivery, and facilitation to unblock your team and achieve your specific organizational objectives.

Our Process: Building a successful retreat

A well-planned and executed corporate leadership retreat builds a more cohesive and aligned team.

A leadership offsite has three key objectives:
• Provides focused time to achieve a specific goal (a new direction, solve a complex problem, etc.)
• Upskills the team together with the same messaging, information, and a new shared vocabulary
• Builds stronger, trusted relationships

Our approach is flexible, and depends on your needs. Here outlines our approach to designing a unique retreat leaning experience:

• Kick-off meeting: Draft your goals for the retreat
The goal of this meeting is to synchronize and set the overall direction. What are you hoping to accomplish with your team? What is the one thing that can be accomplished by bringing the group together that can’t be done during the regular day-to-day? What issues need deeper exploration, or would benefit from stronger alignment? And where are the no-go zones that should be avoided?

• Confidential Interviews with retreat attendees
We meet one-on-one with as many of your team members who will be attending. We want to understand their priorities and challenges, hear what’s stopping them, and learn what would help them become more effective leaders. We do this so we can identify common themes and low-hanging fruit to include in our retreat design. (It also builds trust, which is critical during the retreat itself.)

• Retreat Design
Based on your goals and the interviews, we’ll put together an agenda that can include a mix of training modules, breakout group work, practical problem solving, and facilitated conversations. (It will also include relationship-building and social time.) There will be a “flow” – a story arc for the day where each block in the schedule builds on the previous one. Our approach will also put together possible pre-reading (or pre-work), so everyone can hit the ground running.

• Approval and Fine-tuning
We’ll walk you through the draft agenda, and work with you to fine-tune it. Some clients are surprised by elements of the agenda – but they are there because it can address issues brought forward by members of your team. Once the agenda is set, we’ll begin developing the detailed facilitation notes, customizing any training, and putting together any pre-reading/pre-work.

• On-site Mentorship
Attendees will typically have many questions and reflections during the event. Some of the most impactful conversations happen outside the formal schedule: at breaks, the evening before, and the evening after. We actively seek out these conversations to help your team more deeply process their learning.

• Post-event Reinforcement
For any new learning to stick, there needs to be follow up. We will provide visual reference sheets, and provide post-retreat readings. After the event, we will also meet with your senior leadership to share additional insights that surfaced during the pre-interviews, formal sessions, and our on-site conversations.

Retreat Planning Resources

Here are some resources to help you plan your best-yet leadership retreat.

CHOOSING A FACILITATOR

How to Choose a Leadership Retreat Facilitator

What should you be asking a potential executive offsite facilitator?
What would a good answer look like? And what would a right-fit-for-your-organization answer look like?

Download the 10 Tough Questions to Ask a Retreat Facilitator.

RETREAT KICKOFF SCRIPT

CEO Retreat Opening Remarks Blueprint

Gather your thoughts and give yourself the piece of mind that you will kick off your retreat like a pro with this retreat opening remarks outline.

Download the CEO Retreat Opening Remarks Blueprint and kick off an impactful retreat.

AVOID COMMON MISTAKES

7 Mistakes to Avoid on Your Leadership Retreat

Avoid these common offsite planning mistakes to make sure your retreat investment goes smoothly and has max impact on your organization.

Download the 7 Retreat Mistakes to Avoid at your executive offsite .

Find more in our Leadership Retreat Planning Resource Center.

What we do

Work with the leadership team / CEO to ensure goals are met.
Listen to the goals, blockers and dynamics of your team.
Plan and deliver the training content for your team (or board).
Address as many issues as we can with sensitivity and discretion.
Plan the breakout groups.
Plan small group work and consolidate the learning.
Facilitate important conversations to gain alignment.
Motivate, educate, and inspire teams to work productively together.
Plan relevant pre-work, deliver reference notes, and post-event resources.
Make it a fun experience for everyone. We're serious, but we have fun!

What we don't do

"Open" retreats for individuals: we only work with groups.
Event logistics: We don't pick the venue, meals, etc.
Pre-packaged presentations: Every presentation is unique based on your objectives, attendee interviews, and your feedback.
Drama: We are easy to work with. There are no surprises..

Pricing

In the market for retreat leaders, you will find a wide range of fees, ranging from $5K to $100K+. As there are so many variables (and each of our clients is unique), it is impossible for us to provide a definitive quote without a conversation.

While our fees have typically ranged from $15K to $50K, we don't want this to be an impediment – we're more interested in working with great leadership teams who are looking to make a significant impact.

Give us a call – no obligation, just conversation.

– Randall

"A top number one communicator and visionary with excellent skills and technical knowledge. I can recommend Randall without reservation."
- Bob Coffey, Vice-chair, KMPG

"Great to work with. He got inside our business and inside the heads of our clients. He delivers... with a smile."
- David Stones, CEO, Childhood Cancer Foundation