Executing a Flawless Annual Leadership Retreat
“We do not pay for activity, we pay for results!”
One of my most memorable experiences was the first time I was asked to chair the planning for a global, annual executive retreat. Over 100 executives from around the world were being invited to New York City for a high stakes meeting of two recently merged companies where the vision for the future and the path forward would be created by those in attendance. We worked tirelessly on the meeting. I had the opportunity to work for a wonderful CEO who had in his mind a great vision for the future and he wanted to see every aspect of this meeting successful. A few days before the meeting start day I was doing a final run through of the agenda with the CEO and the Executive Committee. At the end of the session my boss said, “I just want to thank Tim and his team for all of their hard work in putting this meeting together.” The CEO then said something which rings true to me even to this day and has become an axiom for everything I do. He said that “while we appreciate all of Tim’s efforts, we do not pay for activity, we pay for results!”
I have done annual leadership retreats for over 20 years in locations such as New York City, Miami, Raleigh, Key Largo, Rio De Janeiro, Milan, London, Baroda, Shanghai, Tokyo, Amsterdam and Hawaii. Some companies look at these meetings as a communication meeting. I look at them as organizational change, adult learning and alignment opportunities. Partnering with the CEO and their executive team on these meetings is exciting, challenging and the stakes are high. It can cost a great deal to bring executives in from all over the world and their time is precious. Many of the meetings I have planned and facilitated have had well over 100 executives present from all corners of the world. Most importantly these meetings are all about getting results. Results from the meeting are required for sure, but most importantly moving the business forward is a neccesity.
Here are some helpful tips for planning your next meeting that may help simplify and de-stress your life:
- Start planning very early. Since most of these are held early in a new year, I generally suggest laying the ground work for the meeting the summer before.
- Assemble your planning team. Of course, the CEO is the client. The Executive Committee are key stakeholders. For the planning team, I typically would have someone from HR, Communication, Security and IT on the team. I would also have someone who served as an admin for us. Additionally I preferred to use an outside vendor for production. The company I have always used is very good at venue selection, negotiations, handling all aspects of the AV and set design and helping to plan the social events.
- Begin by asking “what is it we want to achieve?” Stay focused on this throughout your planning. I find that many CEO’s are really good at reading the pulse of the company and seeing into the future as to what the meeting will need to focus on to be the highest and best use of the time. Be prepared that CEO’s will continue to “dial in” the agenda right up until the meeting. That said, if you are investing big money to bring in execs from all over the world, the event will need to be highly choreographed and the agenda does need to get locked down at least a month before execution. Changes late in the planning often result in mistakes in meeting execution. Be prepared to give on more minor things to keep the bigger things in place. I often find there will be a lot of jockeying for time on the agenda by some. You need to keep the CEO laser-focused on what needs to be achieved.
- Select a meeting theme, logo, look and feel. Make sure the CEO has their fingerprints all over the theme. I found it best to listen carefully to their initial thoughts on what they want to achieve and create theme ideas based on our conversations. At the end of the day, you want them to look good and also feel good about what was achieved. It is not about you as the planning chair, it is about what you want to achieve, but it is very important for that to reflect the CEO and leadership team’s ideas.
- Venue selection is critical based on what you want to achieve. If you want lots of break out sessions, then you will want a property that makes this simple. Also be sure you know what is going on in the hotel at the same time. I often preferred to select properties that were big enough to accommodate the size of our group, but also where we were big enough to control most of the property. I do not like having meetings in huge hotels where there is a lot of other meetings. This puts you in the “little fish in a big pond” scenario.
- Meet with the Executive Committee frequently to get their input and make them feel good about the meeting and what needs to be achieved. Be accommodating as much as you can without giving on key “have to’s” from the CEO on the agenda.
- Outside speakers, entertainment and special vendors need to be booked well in advance so make these things a priority early. Sometimes there is a push to invite customers to these types of meetings. A word of caution here. Customers can be great. They can really help you highlight specific topics that you want to address. Also be aware that customers can be a “wild card.” You cannot control what they say and some have a tendency to cancel at the last-minute or send a junior subordinate in their place.
- Agree early on a budget and make sure agreed overage is highlighted and documented.
- Put structure in your meeting logistics planning. I usually have meetings once month until you are three months out and then begin having meetings every other week. The last month there is a weekly meeting. It is important to keep notes of all decisions, budgets, and action items. Make sure and plan for your during and post meeting communications packs. A major part of every meeting I do is to provide a cascade pack for leaders to take back to their teams and present key messages, commitments etc. We always send out a post meeting survey to provide feedback for the next year’s meeting and sometimes we would even poll 2 downs and see if the messages from the meeting were in fact delivered as expected. If you are having a meeting at an international location, be sure to have a couple of people from your company on the ground at the venue who can help you be aware of things like local traffic patterns, places to see and do. Once when I planned a meeting in Shanghai, we wanted the leadership team of 150 people to visit a China cancer hospital and also a traditional Chinese Medicine Pharmacy. This required a considerable amount of logistics planning in order to avoid peak traffic times, schedule the facilities etc. We could not have done that without feet on the ground.
- Schedule rehearsals for all presenters. You will want to do this well before the meeting and also have an on site rehearsal as well. Make sure if you are the overall planning chair to ensure topics stay on target, within time frames and have been scoured for unseemly slides and messages. It can often be a great idea to let meeting participants introduce different sessions, give instructions, facilitate break outs etc. This helps them feel like they have skin in the game. At some meetings where buy-in was especially important, I would use key pads to ask questions in the meeting about progress and it is a good way to measure achievement of meeting objectives by asking early on and then at the end.
- Plan your break out sessions well. I liked using pre-printed flip chart pages to have the groups fill in and report back to the main group. If you have facilitators, it is important to do rehearsals with them too. Be sure and be clear in your plenary sessions on instructions for the breakouts. Prepare concise slides for the one giving the breakout instructions.
- Before each day of the meeting, do a complete run-through of the next day. Go through each and every slide and agenda step. Make sure hotel personnel are briefed on times, breaks etc. You will want to have regular meetings with the banquet personnel in the months before the meeting and just before the meeting and during.
If you ever want to bounce off some ideas on planning a meeting like this, feel free to contact me. We would love to help you achieve results!