Retreats
Should you facilitate your own retreat?
Team Selgars · · 1 min read
The real cost of doing it yourself
If you facilitate, you are not a participant. You will spend the retreat managing time, watching the room and worrying about the next block. Whatever you personally needed from those days, you will not get it. If what you needed was a day of your own, take it separately; a one-day solo retreat costs nothing and needs no venue.
For a leader, there is a second cost: people behave differently when the person running the session also runs their performance review. Some conversations simply will not happen.
When to do it yourself anyway
Small teams who already speak frankly. Retreats that are mostly working sessions rather than anything relational. Groups where you genuinely have no budget and the alternative is not doing it. In those cases, self-facilitation is fine — just be honest that you are working, not attending.
When to bring someone in
When there is a live conflict. When the point is trust rather than output. When you are the problem being discussed. When the stakes are high enough that a mediocre outcome is worse than the fee.
The middle option
Facilitate the easy blocks yourself and bring someone in for the hard one. It costs a fraction of a full engagement and covers the session where being outside the hierarchy actually matters.