Offsite organisers and executives
How do I run a leadership offsite that produces action?
Start with one question, before you book the venue: what decision or commitment does this group need to walk out of the room with? Most offsites fail for a simple reason — the output was never defined. Two days later, people return to their desks, a summary gets circulated, and nothing changes because nobody agreed on what “done” meant before they arrived.
Framework: Brian Hartzer’s Leadership Star · Practices: All five practices
The pre-work that matters
Before the offsite, establish three things in writing:
- The one or two decisions this group is actually empowered to make — not discuss, make
- The commitments individuals are being asked to own when they leave
- How progress on those commitments will be reviewed, and by when
If you can’t answer all three before the event, the offsite will produce discussion, not action. That’s not a facilitation problem. It’s a design problem.
Structure around outputs, not topics
Most offsite agendas are lists of topics. Rewrite yours as a list of outputs: “By end of Day 1, we will have agreed the three priorities for H2 and named the owner of each.” That reframe changes the dynamic in the room. People are working toward something. The conversation has a destination.
Day one should be harder than day two. Put the real decision — the one people are most inclined to talk around — on the first morning, before the social dynamic has a chance to solidify. Afternoon sessions on Day 2, after a dinner, rarely produce anything useful. Schedule accordingly.
Get the right people in the room
An offsite with the wrong people is worse than no offsite. If a critical voice is absent — the person who actually owns implementation, the person who will raise the objection everyone’s been avoiding — the decisions made will unravel the moment they meet reality. Better to delay than to agree with the wrong group.
Use the Five Cs as a leadership audit structure
For a leadership offsite specifically, the five practices give you a natural set of questions to work through:
- Care: Do our managers know enough about the people they’re leading? Are we investing in the right development conversations?
- Context: Does everyone in this room agree on the “why” we’re asking people to follow us?
- Clarity: Where are our people unclear about expectations — and where are we unclear with each other?
- Clear the Way: What are the top two or three obstacles our managers face that leadership can actually remove?
- Celebrate: What recognition cadence will we each commit to — and who will hold us to it?
The conversations that matter most
The most important exchanges at any offsite happen informally — at dinner, over breakfast, in the corridor. Build deliberate space for that. Formal sessions create the agenda; informal ones create the relationships that make the agenda survivable when things get hard back at the office.
Where judgment matters
Some offsites shouldn’t produce action. Genuine listening sessions, honest feedback, building relationships across a senior team — these have real value that can’t be measured in a decision register. Know the purpose before you design the structure.
What is the one thing this group is actually empowered to decide — and is it front and centre on the agenda, or buried in a panel discussion?
Books for your team
Special prices are available for bulk and organisational orders. Tell us the quantity, the delivery country and when you need them, and we will confirm the options.