Our Retreat Description

The word retreat means two things:

1. “The act of withdrawing from something”. 

2. “To move away from danger.” 

During this retreat, we are, in some ways, asking your people to do just that. We need you all to move away from the workplace where stress is prevalent and where you are easily accessible to make decisions and solve problems. 

We do this so that you can enter an environment where we can gain your complete attention, where you feel “off duty”, and where you can relax surrounded by colleagues who want to make the most out of the time they have together. This is about focusing on what is not working and making it work.

This event is specifically tailored to your organisation's needs, requirements, and desired outcomes. 

It can be for:

• top executives. 
• a combination of your top executives and senior leadership. 
• a mix of your organisation's top decision-makers, HR, directors, managers, team leaders and colleagues. 

The numbers usually range from about nine to 30 people. The venue for the event, along with transportation, accommodation, and meals, is booked by the participating organisation and is usually centrally located and accessible to most attendees. We will guide you about the requirements of the location. 

The retreat weekend can be held on any two consecutive days (7 days a week), such as Friday and Saturday, Saturday and Sunday, Sunday and Monday, or any other two weekdays. 

The format is agreed upon before the date is set, so we can fully discuss all the ingredients your people wish to cover. 

An example of a past event is shown below. 

Request a discussion to help identify the key objectives and ingredients of your Corporate Retreat. 

An example of a recent event  

Day One:

• Event briefing. (Grouping attendees, rules on discussions, timings, etc).
• Share our organisational and personal objectives. (Gathered before the event).
• The jigsaw activity (a short, fun activity to get your creative minds in gear).
• The basics of Emotional Intelligence, Psychological Safety, our Moccasin Approach^®, our ARCHWAY Approach^®, and why these are critical to organisational communication.
• Organisational self-assessment and analysis. (Identifying unseen barriers/blockers). 
• How to become more self-aware by working with colleagues in different teams/areas of the organisation. 
• The day is peppered with breakout groups 
• Reflect on the day’s work, list objectives for the morning and close day one.
• Evening to relax. 

Day Two:

• “Macs Cafe” (A challenging activity to get those brains going). 
• Aligning organisational values with the organisational culture.
• Create a template for Personal Profiles (possibly). 
• Break out group work to establish ideas and possible solutions to yesterday's barriers/blockers.
• The start of our Organisational Culture Engagement Team (OCET). 
• A plan for the future. 
• Next steps and committing plans to actions. (Accountability, Responsibility and Accountability).
• Wash up the retreat and depart the venue.  

Who Should Attend and Why?

Who? - As mentioned above, you decide: 

• top executives. 
• a combination of your top executives and senior leadership.
• a mix of your organisation's top decision-makers, HR, directors, managers, team leaders and colleagues. 

Why? - To discover the undisclosed issues that live just below the surface of most conversations. To explore the challenges that some people have or know of that their people face. To health check the organisational culture. To see how people feel about how things currently work, and what they’d like to see improved. 

Leave with a list of “Actions” and check-in dates in all calendars.  

In our opinion, Organisational Culture (OC) is split into three types:

• Presented culture– where the organisation proudly portrays the culture they say or think (are told) everyone exhibits.
• Experienced culture– the actual feeling of the organisation’s culture that people experience from working there. (The one that is whispered about). 
• Localised culture– this can be completely different between two teams next to each other.

When you create and launch your Organisational Culture Engagement Team (OCET Team), you will empower it to accomplish many things we’d happily recommend. Most of all, this team will become the engine that drives your OC programme forward to success and a far better working environment. This will not be easy, but the more you invest in this, the quicker the difference will be felt across the organisation.

If you want a superb OC, want your people to talk openly about how great it is to work in your organisation (and mean it), then dig deep, be honest, and bring out the truth. Get stuck into a Corporate Retreat with us.   

Our Delivery Options

We are confident that you will understand why this event must be held face-to-face. On one occasion, we managed to bring a person onto a Teams/Zoom call who was too ill to attend in person, but they said that their experience lacked the personal “part of the team” feeling. 

These events can be held at a location of your choice or, if you wish, at the Macdonald Burlington Hotel in Birmingham, located directly across from the Birmingham New Street train station. 

All Expenses

All our expenses are included in our daily rate, so there will be no additional charges applied (unless extra add-ons are required, such as catch-up sessions when someone misses a workshop).