Team retreats

Focus

The focus of the event is to make real business decisions in an atmosphere of clear and coherent thinking. Nigel Barlow has 17 years international experience in conducting Strategic Team Events. These are also co-run with Nigel’s colleague, Ian Taylor. Nigel has run sessions in Australia, America, Europe and South Africa, and often uses venues like the Aravis Alpine Retreat in the French Alps. Here full business facilities are available and top teams from organisations have the option to ski for a couple of hours in the mornings followed by making real business decisions in a totally relaxed atmosphere.

The French have an expression for this – reculer pour mieux sauter – which loosely translates as ‘pull back in order to jump forward more successfully’. It’s hard to achieve this in an airport hotel!

Principles

The principles involved in designing successful events include:

• Real business issues on the agenda – not just building Lego towers!
• Active partnership with the team’s manager or champion
• Mutual trust and appreciation are the keys to great team behaviour
• An off-site relaxing environment
• Understanding the main challenges / problems and opportunities / morale issues facing the group
• Working creatively together should be fun!

These events tend to work best when:

• There’s a new boss, or a new team
• There’s a new business challenge
• Following, or just before, a reorganisation, restructuring, downsizing or merger
• The team needs a reward, rest and re-focus!

Style

The style of the sessions is highly interactive, using a cocktail of dynamic inputs, small group work, coaching and active facilitation. A psychometric inventory on problem-solving style if often used and ideally team members are interviewed before the event. Each session is tailored but the common ingredients are:

• Analysis of the team’s problem-solving style
• Creative team working: appreciating and understanding each other’s roles and contribution
• Innovative thinking tools for tackling business challenges
• Application of tools to the team’s current business agenda
• Strategies for ensuring implementation of ideas generated

"Nigel’s understanding of our company culture and business, combined with his solid background in teams, and the way in which teams work gave us a structured way to achieve results, better understanding of ourselves, and improved communication between us all. He makes statements based on facts, not only fancy words; his presentation was very balanced and included good teamwork activities. He is an excellent communicator and fun to work with!"