Company profile:

• Leading provider of free online resources that enable greater health insurance and prescription drug choices for millions of consumers while also helping control costs for employers and health insurance providers
• Approximately $20M company with almost 100 employees spread across multiple locations throughout the United States

Business challenge:

• Company was trying to produce breakthrough results and bring new solutions to market with a relatively new CEO and Executive Team still in transition
• Executive Team suffered from lack of trust and personal respect among team members and needed to focus on interpersonal relations and intra-team communications to work more effectively as a group

Team effectiveness and leadership retreat solutions provided include:

• Conducted individual interviews with all Executive Team members to assess underlying issues and identify root causes of the performance issues
• Facilitated 2-day offsite using Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) as the foundation for self-disclosure and Patrick Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions of a Team as the foundation for performance improvements
• Led second offsite session to define the Company’s Thematic Goal for the year and develop a scorecard for monitoring team performance; Established shared metrics for success and clear protocols for cascading communication throughout the organization during this meeting to keep management and staff aligned
• Administered MBTI survey for new Chief Technology Officer as he was on-boarded; Facilitated 1:1 debrief session with him to review his individual results
• Facilitated additional ½-day session with Executive Team members to discuss their work style differences and further integrate the CTO into the team

Key business results:

• Facilitated the Executive Team through various group activities to lay the foundation for being a high-performing team moving forward
• Raised everyone’s awareness to the team’s underlying performance issues and rebuilt trust among them

We were very fortunate to have Jeremy lead our Executive Team through several critical working retreats. He was fantastic in giving us the tools and common language we needed to rebuild trust amongst the team and communicate more effectively together.

- Vice-President, Human Capital

Instilled a new sense of confidence in their potential together and delivered new tools and approaches for Executive Team members to interact with each other and be more effective leaders. 

- Vice-President, Human Capital

Addressing today’s complex business challenges requires team collaboration and group involvement. As the old saying goes, “Two heads are better than one.” And with no end in sight with the global economic crisis, you probably need even more heads than that to survive!

At times like these, business objectives are constantly changing. What got your organization here isn’t likely to get your organization where you ultimately want to be. For this reason, business leaders must get on the same page – and stay on the same page – for your organization toreach its intended destination. Individual leaders simply won’t be able to get through these challenges alone. To move towards the future, senior leadership needs to be aligned and work together toward common business goals.

Whether you’re plotting a new strategic course for your organization or working an operational issue that must be resolved, a leadership retreat is the most effective way to do exactly that. The best thinking and decision-making happens when you include many perspectives, so it’s critical to engage others in brainstorming and problem-solving processes to create a competitive advantage.

When convening a leadership retreat, it’s great if you can get away to an offsite location and remove everyone from their everyday work environment. But if your budget doesn’t allow for that, you can just as easily use an onsite conference room too. The key is to create a safe and productive environment for much-needed discussion and group dialogue to occur. It’s also important to dedicate the right amount of time for everyone to be together. An hour-long meeting isn’t going to cut it for the types of challenges organizations face in today’s economic climate. A day might be sufficient, but leaders need ample time together so two days typically provides a stronger foundation for a leadership retreat.

At Plus Delta, we start the retreat process by identifying any specific objectives for the group event. We then customize the retreat design to meet our client’s particular needs. Just like no two people are exactly alike, no two leadership teams are exactly alike. That’s why the retreat must be designed based on the particular business requirements of the organization if it’s going to be successful. The following framework highlights the key steps in our proven approach for designing and facilitating leadership retreats:

• Requirements Gathering – Meet with senior leaders and other participants to assess current business challenges and determine any expectations for the retreat
• Retreat Design – Create the overall framework and detailed agenda for the retreat as well as secure guest speakers and confirm event logistics
• Group Facilitation – Distribute pre-work assignments and engage all retreat participants in an interactive session to discuss and address your key business issues
• Retreat Wrap-Up – Capture the group’s work, debrief the results of the retreat, and confirm very next steps along with individual accountabilities and action plans

When Plus Delta designs and facilitates leadership retreats, we deliver lasting business results that move an organization forward. One of the primary reasons for this is that the group conversations that take place during leadership retreats aren’t always easy. In fact, they often get downright messy! That’s why it’s so vital to have a skilled facilitator present to keep the retreat on track. And that’s exactly what our “Design in Real Time” approach is intended to do – follow the needs of the group in real-time and keep every retreat participant engaged in the discussion. Retreat participants need to be actively involved in designing their destiny, and it’s impossible to play both facilitator and participant roles effectively at the same time. By managing the broader group dynamics and maintaining focus on the desired outcomes for the retreat, we can more effectively create a high-impact experience.

This has never been more evident than with a couple of recent retreats we facilitated. We led multiple sessions with the Board and senior staff members of two merging not-for-profit agencies so they could define their vision for the combined organization as well as develop a go-forward strategic plan. We also facilitated a two-day offsite with the Leadership Team of a multi-national corporation and created an opportunity for these senior leaders to contribute to their organization’s annual goal-setting and action planning process – something they had not done for years! With both these clients, our ability to monitor and then quickly address the evolving needs of these leadership groups in real-time proved invaluable for creating safe environments for dialogue, actively engaging retreat participants in the discussion, and ultimately producing better results.

Can Plus Delta help your leadership team get aligned and be more productive together? To learn more about our approach to designing and facilitating high-impact leadership retreats, give us a call at +1 (310) 589-4600 or send an email to info@plusdelta.net