Retreats
Nine ways retreats go wrong
Team Selgars · · 1 min read
Programming every hour
The most common and the most costly. The unscheduled time is not a gap in the retreat; it is where the retreat happens.
The leader facilitating a session about the leader
If the topic is how leadership is going, the person being discussed cannot hold the room. Everyone knows it and nobody will say it.
Skipping the opening and closing
They feel soft and they are structural. Without an opening the group takes a day to arrive. Without a closing it disperses without consolidating anything.
Ignoring the journey
One person doing five hours each way will spend the retreat tired and will not say so. Plan around the worst journey.
The rest
Treating dietary needs as an afterthought. Making optional things socially compulsory. Booking a venue on photographs without a call. Not writing down decisions. And having no follow-up at all, which teaches everyone that the whole thing was theatre. The cheapest follow-up is a practice people take home; the classic is to send everyone off with a 30-day breathwork challenge.