I don’t want to jinx it, but it looks like enough of us will be vaccinated in the near future to start thinking about meeting in person again. I’m sure there will be masks and distancing involved for some time to come, but I, for one, am excited about the chance for groups of humans to once again gather together for extended periods of time and have the conversations they need to have. That, in fact, has been a primary focus of my whole career: helping people have the conversations they need to have.
And that starts with your senior management team. For some teams, it may have been two years since you really had extended time together. Yes, we’ve all adjusted to the “zoom world” we’ve been living in, but that means conversations tend to be broken down into two-hour chunks, at best. And we lack the ability to continue the conversation informally over meals or at the bar. It’s just not the same.
So now is the time to start thinking about how you would spend a precious day or day-and-a-half together. Other than the obvious need to reconnect as humans (make sure you put in time for that), what conversations would you tackle if you had that kind of time together? What are the most pressing issues that you haven’t been able to successfully navigate on zoom? What are the top 2 or 3 conversations you could have as a team that you think would have the biggest impact on organizational performance?
We’ve been facilitating senior management retreats for decades, so contact me if you’d like some help thinking this through.
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez
