Retreat ideas for small teams of six to twelve

With eight people over three days, everyone can take a turn in the kitchen in a pair. You learn an enormous amount about colleagues from how they cook, and it puts people together who would not otherwise pair up.

A three-hour walk, and every thirty minutes everyone changes walking partner. Side by side, outdoors, moving, no eye contact required — people say things they would never say across a table. It is the highest-yield activity per unit of effort we know.

Not work-related. Bread, a card game, a language, how to sharpen a knife. Small teams have room for everyone to have a turn, and it reorders who is expert in the room, which is healthy.

Resist filling it. A small group with a fire, no agenda and nowhere to be will find its own way to the conversation it needed to have. Larger groups need scaffolding; this size does not.