3 Tips To Create An Inspiring Team Retreat!

After two years of mandated distance, we are now able to think and plan to bring our teams back together for in-person gatherings, meetings and maybe a team retreat. I have been building the team here at IRG for the past 18 months, and many of the team members had never met in person before, which is now a common experience for many teams. Miraculously, we were able to find a time and a location for early September and suddenly our first IRG Team Retreat was underway. Now what?  How were we going to make this retreat a meaningful experience that met everyone’s expectations. Heck, what were everyone’s expectations?

Our retreat unfolded and felt like a very unique experience for many reasons, I have been reflecting on what contributed to the flow and the ease with which we came together to co-create the future of Inspired Results Group.  What set us up to literally feel inspired and get some great results from our 2 days together? What I realized is that it wasn’t just good luck, a great venue and talented people who made our retreat so powerful. It was a combination of key ingredients that set us all up for success in a meaningful way. This blog created an opportunity to reflect and share the learning from our real life experience.

I offer you these 3 considerations for your team retreat planning. Some may be obvious, but when combined together this is a wonderful ingredients list for an inspired team retreat!

1.     Get clear on the WHY and WHAT and WHO for the team retreat.

Our reason or why for gathering was primarily to build relationships with one another, with a secondary purpose of exploring the IRG service offerings and mapping out the future. With the clarity of relationships as the primary purpose for the retreat, that meant the schedule included lots of social time, meals together and opportunities for both group and one-on-one connection. The design of the retreat also incorporated shared responsibilities and who was “in the lead” for both the content and the meals and fun time. We all like to know how we can contribute and when. Having some structure to it allows us to prep emotionally and energetically in advance. Knowing when you had to be on, and when you could follow creates a sense of ease and flow for everyone involved. I know I loved it when someone else was in the lead for cooking dinner J .

The Lesson: Clarity of purpose informs your design.

2.     Understand and leverage the strengths and style of your team members.

As a coaching company, we LOVE to utilize various tools to understand ourselves and how we are wired to think, respond, decide and engage with the world. As a team we have all participated in the Relationship Intelligence tool from Core Strengths as well as diving into the unique tool of Human Design . What these tools provided was a set of data about one another that helped to quickly understand one another and then create the space for everyone to contribute in their unique way, and to leverage the strengths of the individuals on the team. Specific examples of this include knowing that everyone on the team gets excited about ideas and so we might lose focus, and my need to manage decision-making in the moment, and giving myself permission to percolate before deciding. These are two simple, yet powerful examples of how having personal awareness helped us manage ourselves effectively throughout the retreat.

The Lesson: Invest in upfront personal awareness tools.

3.     Build structure and allow for flexibility

Knowing that we only had 2 days together, a desire to get to know each other and some business clarity we needed to create, it was important to design the retreat with blocks of time that were clearly identified for their purpose. I also designed for social time, physical movement and solo time for those that needed it. The “working” blocks of time were clearly mapped out and each block of time had a specific focus and purpose. And then….. we abandoned the content on day 2 because I asked the question “What would make this time together valuable for you?” and the answers from the team created a slightly different focus. So we went in a different direction and adapted on the fly. Adele stepped into her team coaching role and away we went with an incredibly productive conversation about the future of IRG, inspired by the conversations from day 1 and the clarity of what the team wanted to achieve in the next 4 hours.

The Lesson: Plan, then adapt!

I hope this article supports you to plan your upcoming team retreat with intentionality and inspiration. It can also be incredibly valuable to have an outside facilitator to support your team to stay focused and move your thinking forward and document the output. If you are thinking about hosting a team retreat and would like to engage us for some support with design and facilitation, then book a discovery call with me and let’s create an inspiring and productive retreat for your team!   

Written by: Diane Lloyd CEC PCC- IRG Head Coach