Awaydays

Objective

Most of us work in an employment location. Even if we work in an increasingly flexible structure that encourages home-working, the office base is the single location we have in common with our colleagues and the one which essentially defines our relationships. It is the place where we most often meet, which has formal and informal rules of behaviour, and which sets the tone – itself affected by many factors (location, structure, layout, catering, recreation facilities and so on).

Work locations are necessarily artificial – they bring together people who wouldn’t otherwise meet or socialise. They are also necessarily transactional – we tend to focus on getting the job done and having conversations about work. Pleasantries about our outside (‘real’) lives are inevitably fragmented, partial and discrete.

Work locations thus become limiting – they limit our opportunity to understand our colleagues, and what makes them tick, and to share the knowledge and experience they have that may not be highlighted by the transactional nature of shared work.

Occasional ‘awaydays’ – taking your team out of the office context into a less structured, less formal and more social environment – can help to break down the barriers that workplaces can erect.

The objective of awaydays is not to create a false bonhomie, but to engender an improved team spirit through deeper personal relationships.

Context

If you accept that workplaces are artificial and can create barriers, you need to understand the greater risk they also present – one of dysfunction. We have probably all seen circumstances where colleagues ‘don’t get on’ and where managing the interface between them requires at best diplomacy and at worst sidestepping ‘hot spots’. Such tension can have many causes, including:

• resentment of others’ roles or promotions;
• frustrated ambition;
• a feeling that personal skills are overlooked or underestimated;
• misunderstandings over issues;
• a lack of clarity of roles;
• poor interpersonal skills – compounded by a lack of feedback.

This is part of business life. Awaydays can help in providing a more social setting where some of the inhibitions affecting the workplace can be removed (there is more time to talk about personal lives), and where even the sources of conflict can be confronted.

Challenge

The greatest challenge to successful awaydays is the sceptic – the colleague who doesn’t believe in what they perceive as the management sophistry of putting staff in an even more artificial setting to create essentially false goodwill. This sceptic will suggest directly or indirectly that awaydays are:

• a waste of time (and money);
• at best a distraction from daily transactional tasks;
• at worst an attempt to create a sense of teamwork that is an illusion and representative of ‘management speak’.

I have to say quite openly that it is absolutely true that awaydays are a management collusion – in this case between good leadership and people teams, and advisedly so. The only responses to scepticism are:

• persistence – continuing to undertake awaydays in the face of disbelief;
• explanation – being unembarrassed when explaining why you are doing awaydays;
• leading by example – persuading colleagues of the value of awaydays through their outcomes.

There will always be those who doubt the value of awaydays. As leader you must confront them and show them they are wrong.

Success

The success of awaydays essentially rests in achieving a subtle balance between careful planning and unstructured informality, within a framework where your team know that you take them seriously.

• Clarity of purpose – as leader you make it clear very early on that you will be having awaydays, and having them regularly.
• Frequency – plan to have them at least once a year, preferably every six months, so that they are seen as part of a process and not as a one-off.
• Location – select somewhere away from the office and in an environment that is conducive to constructive thinking. Business schools, for example, are better in this regard than hotel meeting rooms.
• Time – allow at least one and a half days so that there is no feeling that you are in a rush between whatever came before and what comes after. A lack of time, and a pressured agenda, introduces a stress inconsistent with an awayday’s goals.
• Agenda and objectives – set an agenda in advance, so that the objectives of an awayday are clear, but be prepared to flex the agenda and change the contents, depending on the outcome of conversations.
• Facilitation – consider whether your awayday meeting would benefit from any outside facilitation. Generally outsiders disrupt team dynamics but you may decide this is exactly what you want because you take the view that your team is rather too dysfunctional or too satisfied with itself.
• Interruption – do not allow interruptions. Ask for phones to be turned off, laptops to be closed and any other planned, conflicting meetings to be rescheduled (including teleconferences).
• Meals – make sure there is at least one planned evening team meal – this can be an excellent way of breaking down barriers (especially through careful use of planned seating).
• Outsiders – include outsiders (i.e. non-direct reports) very sparingly, maybe as guest speakers for particular sessions.
• Outcomes – ensure that agreed outcomes are noted, actioned and reviewed.

Managing awaydays – easy as they are to organise – requires extreme deftness on your part. They are not – and cannot be run as – another set of meetings in the management calendar. Nor are they freebies designed to make staff feel good in probably more luxurious circumstances than usual. They are there for a real purpose – you must take the opportunity they present!

Pitfalls

Probably the biggest mistake you can make is to organise awaydays but not to take them seriously for what they are – in other words, to pay lip-service to the concept allowing them to become either ordinary meetings or ‘jollies’ (there is a place for the ‘jolly’ but it is a quite different event).

Don’t start awaydays if you don’t intend to continue them – a start–stop approach devalues their significance and will make you look like a leader who has adopted the concept of awaydays as a fad but has then reverted to a more traditional type.

Equally, if awaydays do have the potential significance I have argued, then they may throw up major challenges to the direction of your team, the way it is run (by you) and its composition. An awayday may force you or your team to confront issues more openly, but it will not necessarily resolve them. Follow-up is vital – failure to follow-up may be more debilitating and undermining than a failure to confront issues in the first place.

Leaders’ checklist

• Talk about awaydays early on in your tenure as leader – make them seem normal, and make it clear you are committed to them.
• If you hold awaydays, make sure they are regular and are seen as part of your team’s processes.
• Give them a name – they acquire a life of their own and this helps to enforce their importance and difference.
• See the cost of awaydays as a minimal and highly justifiable investment in your team, and probably offering a higher return than more conventional management development.
• Don’t underestimate the importance of the venue in contributing to the success of your awaydays – it plays a crucial role in shaping the tenor of the events.
• Do involve your people team in the organisation and planning of your awaydays – they are bound to support them, and will appreciate the opportunity to shape what they will regard as very worthwhile events.