Do you know how to use your annual off-sites effectively?

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The Pit Stop Leader
by Kanti Gopal Kovvali
The Recharge Ritual
Come January, most organizations begin a laborious cat and mouse exercise technically known as
strategic review and annual planning and popularly known as a Management Offsite. Just like IPL, a
gentlemanly tournament that is played over song and dance, an exotic destination and itinerary
builds the tempo for the much-awaited offsite. The choice of the location, mode of travel and the
raunchy quotient of event management firm are the most keenly debated, widely participated and
probably the most strategic decision that many companies make every year.
As you would have experienced, in several organizations the adrelelin rush of fire fighting is valued
more than the somber elegance of problem exploration. In such organizations the offsite conducted
at organizational and team levels is like a quick Thai massage after a bloody year, rather than a
therapeutic dialogue resulting in holistic wellness.
History of Management Offsite
Why did the offsite ritual begin in the first place? On any given day in a year, managers in
organizations are action focused. In that state of mind, reflection about future is difficult. Hence
organizations began the practice of keeping aside a 2-3 days at the start of the financial year for
senior managers and their reportees to think through strategy. To make it attractive, tourist spots
and five star hotels were chosen as venues for dedicated strategic thinking. In-expensive foreign
travel meant out of country off-sites. However when Senior Managers do not spend enough time on
strategic thinking through out the year and involve themselves in reviews, follow up and day-to-day
management, it becomes very difficult for them to suddenly change gears and get into the strategic
thinking mindset. 2-3 days was not sufficient to get any meaningful output. The time was also not
sufficient to accommodate sight seeing. This led to three side effects:
Side Effect 1: Lotʼs of planning by strategic planning department before hand and using the forum to
just to communicate or at the most get a buy-in
Side Effect 2: Senior Managers who are not used to Strategic Thinking started using this for annual
review. This lead to each presenter working hard to put forward the good news, manage bosses and
influence effectively to get additional financial and human resources for the next financial year.
Side Effect 3: As there was no time for sight-seeing, event management companies started getting
more business to offer entertainment and engaging activities at the offsite location itself.

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These side effects degenerated the off-site into a yearly ritual. There was also the issue of
harassment that women employees complained of post the offsite.
Making Sense of the Recharge Ritual or Importantly designing a Sensible Offsite
Is there a way one could leverage the true value of the Management offsite without getting lost into
the web of side effects? I suppose there is. However we need to first understand the strategic value
(not the historical reason that was mentioned above) of an offsite.
Strategic Value 1: Develop a sense of Interconnectedness
For every manager of an organization, through the twelve months of the year, her unit, her
department and her role constitutes her reality. Depending on her self-concept and the
organizational stance, she could perceive herself as a solo hero who scripts the organizationʼs story
or a victim who is kicked around by every one else and is sacrificed for a greater cause. Intuitively,
you would agree that both these paradigms are incorrect. Neither is a person at the center (hero)
nor is she relegated to sidelines (support cast). Every person, department and unit are strategic as
well perform a support role. Hence demonstrating heroic initiative as well as supporting otherʼs
heroic exploits is necessary for evolving and executing a winning strategy. This realization builds the
wisdom that we are inter connected and lead collaboratively. An offsite where people from various
units, departments and roles congregate, the time and space is created for such wisdom to evolve.
Strategic Value 2: Develop an ecosystem perspective of the organization
Just as an individual may consider herself to be at the center and regale in the delusion of being the
controller and shaper of the story, organizations also battle with their notion of pre-eminence in their
industryʼs socio-economic ecosystem. Their suppliers, customers and societyʼs wellbeing become a
function of the organizationʼs benevolence. Unfortunately this notion is not sustainable. An
organization, however big, is just a fringe player in the larger eco system. The pitiable current state
of several legacy Indian companies is due to the over assumption about their competence and
under estimation of the forces around. An Offsite provide a great platform to bring the voices of all
the stakeholders together and enables the managers to develop awareness about the
interconnected nature of relationships, concerns, aspirations and success.
Strategic Value 3: Unleash creative energies
In organizations we work, walk, drink and gossip in homogenous groups. Similarly, organizations
rub shoulders with the organizations of their kind. In homogeneity lies harmony. But in heterogeneity
lies growth. When people of different departments or companies of different industries listen,
discuss, debate and challenge each otherʼs point of view, a new truth emerges. From that truth
emerges growth and industry disruption. Offsite facilitates emergence because of the sheer
heterogeneity.

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Strategic Value 4: Sow seeds of industry disruption
As we speak every industry is either going through disruption or is ripe for disruption. There are
warning signals everywhere. If you are from banking, does entry of payment banks and possible
elimination of physical money and hence the ATMs likely to figure prominently in your Offside
discussions? If you were a pharmaceutical company, would the changing narrative to enhance the
human life span instead of just address diseases, going to influence the discussions and decisions
in the next offsite?
If people stay satisfied with a cursory glance at the disruptive trends and go back to business as
usual discussions, the offsite is wasting investorʼs time. It is also cheating employees who believe
that the company is safe in the hands of their managers. However the intent of reflective Offsite time
is to create positive restlessness and first action steps to become the next industry disruptor.
Role of Manager in Designing a Rocking Offsite
As a Manager what do you want to do to ensure that your Off-site rocks and causes tectonic shifts?
I am sure you have several ideas. I am sharing a few based on my consulting experience.
To begin with Shut up and Listen
Many seniors have lost the habit to listen especially from their non - bosses. If you call for a
meeting, you design the agenda, you set the tone in the offsite, you give most of the ideas in the
brainstorming sessions, you shortlist ideas for implementation and you conclude the offsite – you
must be a bloody idiot. Grow up. Use the offsite to listen and pick up new thinking, new insights,
new leadership talent and new possibilities.
Ask people to Bring Data and Ideas, Not Decisions
When people prepare too much, they feel compelled to convince others. There is too much ego at
stake. Every functional thought is like one color of a rainbow. One functional thought is neither
valuable nor beautiful without embellishing it with other functional thoughts. Only then a sales idea
will become a business idea. A functional team can present an idea. They cannot sell the idea.
Apart from making it more effective, this way of working also makes the Offsite experience a joyous
one.
Create System Awareness in the Room
In an organizational hierarchy people at different levels have a different world-view simply because
the vantage point from which they are experiencing the organization. Hence their thinking and
actions will be guided by what they see. As we act based on our subjective reality, we sometimes
act inappropriately. In the offsite get your people to sit in heterogeneous groups and listen to each

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otherʼs reality – This includes the best work that they have accomplished in the last 12 months,
Organizational SWOT, Trends, Aspirations and Ideas.
As the wisdom expands, introduce the external stakeholders reality to the group. As the team starts
connecting the dots, insights emerge. You team shifts its fundamental view about the business and
what will enable it to succeed. Cultural change spontaneously happens as the team has seen the
changing external picture together and would have understood that survival and growth would
require a new organizational script.
Explore Problems for 80% of the time; Use only 20% time for Problem solving
We love to play buzzer rounds in meetings. Have you noticed that before some one has completed
articulating the problem, your smarty-pants manager comes up with a quick answer? Offsite can
become a tragedy if the smarty-pants had a field day. Once a problem is explored and the root
cause understood, coming up with solutions is not a big deal. Celebrate problem explorers in your
offsite. Let them take the lead.
Sit in the Offsite as a Learner
In off-sites I observe a few senior managers constantly fiddling with their mobile phone, frequently
moving in and out and some times blatantly making calls will the group discussions are on. They
assume that their job is over once they got everyone together and made them to think. They do not
realize that at the end of the Off-site the group has moved ahead with system awareness and you
have lagged behind with old system knowledge. The senior manager entered the offsite as an asset
and by the end of a Rocking Off-site has become the teamʼs liability. Why not look at the ROI from
Offsite to oneʼs own understanding? Why not sit in the off-site as a learner and gain more than
anyone else?
Epilogue
As a Manager, put yourselves in the shoes of a Formula 1 driver. You know your goal. You have the
skills to take you there. But you cannot do it alone. You need to do it with the help of others. Hence
you need to think through how to leverage the talents of your pit crews and pit stops effectively –
before, during and after the race. If you take your Off-site pit stop lightly and consider it as a fun
social event, your success as an organizational driver will be in jeopardy. Hence the way you handle
an offsite – pit stop for strategic review and annual planning decides the fate of what happens to
your career and companyʼs fortunes during the next 12 months of the year.
As far as the massage is concerned – plan for a separate picnic to Bali.
Kanti Gopal Kovvali is the founder of a Large Scale Change Management boutique firm called
Institution Builders HR Solutions Private Limited. He also authored a book on leadership titled
ʻPit Stops for Peak Performanceʼ. This is a Jaico publication. This apart, he is a visiting faculty to Tata
Institute of Social Sciences. He can be reached at kanti.kovvali@institutionbuildershrsolutions.in