Many of us in our career have been to at least one offsite where the intent of the offsite was to "team-build." The primary expectation placed on the attendees was that they be open participants in various communication and trust-building exercises. Many of these exercises are fine in and of themselves and help to get teams working better together. However, I've found a basic rule to be true of offsites: An offsite without a clearly stated business purpose is a colossal waste of time. So now that I've likely ruffled a few feathers, let's dig into this a bit. The primary reason teams exist is to accomplish something that no one person cannot do as effectively on his own. Whether it's a project team, baseball team, or a board of directors, these groups have a stated purpose which, as a team, they strive to attain. Teams that work well together know how to achieve their stated purpose effectively and with minimal disruption. For teams that don't work well together, the objective is to not get them to work more effectively together, but to get them to work more effectively towards a stated purpose together. If the purpose of an offsite is to get teams to work more effectively together, then it would just seem reasonable to focus an offsite on working together towards a stated purpose which the team can take back to their jobs and apply once the offsite is done. Now, I'm not advocating at all that the offsite be all work and no play (I'll get to this more in focus topic #2). I am saying that the work portion of the offsite needs to have a clearly stated business purpose which the team works to. Aside from the offsite being more relevant to the team, the team will also be more engaged because they will feel something is getting accomplished that will help them in their jobs. Ensure your offsite has a clearly stated business purpose which is explicitly communicated to the team. If you have a fuzzy purpose, the team will look at the offsite as a superfluous boondoggle.

Author: Pacelli, Lonnie
Publisher: Leading on the Edge International
Illustration: N
Language: ENG
Title: We Found a Rock Star! Hiring the Best of the Best
Pages: 00000 (Encrypted PDF)
On Sale: 2005-12-20
SKU-13/ISBN: 9781933750040
Category: Business & Economics : Project Management
Category: Business & Economics : Management - General
Category: Business & Economics : Leadership