Hosting Offsites for Transformation - Andy Elwood

Josiah: 0:00

We're diving deep into the world of off-sites today for two reasons. First, they are a powerful way to develop leaders within your organization and build culture, and second, because, as hospitality providers, hosting off-sites for others is a large and quickly growing source of business. I heard this over and over again from owners and operators last week at the NYU Hospitality Investment Conference, and I also want you to understand what great off-sites look like so that you can cater to the people that want to do these at your property. Andy Elwood is an executive coach, and there are a few better to speak to the power of off-sites than him. Whether participating in events on Necker Island with Richard Branson or facilitating executive gatherings for clients, andy has seen this from almost every possible angle. In this episode, we cover the components of a good off-site how to encourage participation from everyone, the roles of activities and amenities, the role of activities and amenities and much more. But we start out talking about how to prepare for an off-site.

Andy: 1:24

I spend more time doing the prep work than I do at the actual off-site. Even if it's a two-day off-site, i will have done two days of work beforehand. But I also want to make sure that all voices are heard. If you're invited to the off-site, your voice is on equal play and feel with everybody else at the off-site. It's kind of the approach that I, or at least the space that I want to create. I do that a lot of times through surveys. I've got a series of 35 to 50 questions that I'll mix and match based on the occasion and based on who we're working with. I'll send it to every single participant. Then I'll get it all back In. That data is how I'm going to decide the flow of the off-site. The questions will be on a scale of one to five. This team is really good at feedback. This team holds each other accountable. This team inspires me to do my best work. This team is efficient in every way possible. Just big statements that end. What's really fascinating is that you'll get a range of answers, but sometimes you'll get the answer where one person picked one and another person picked five. I'll go through all 30-something questions that we ask. I'll be like, hey, here's the top 10. Here's the ones that you got. Everybody, unanimously gave each other high scores on These. Surprise anybody? Sometimes there's a line where somebody's like, yeah, i don't think we're doing this. More often it's on the next side, which is here's the lowest 10 scores. Those 10 scores will find a lot of meat for the next day, day and a half. Then I will also call out any of the scores that had ones or had fives. They had ones and fives. Say hey, in this room right now there's somebody who gave a one to this and there's somebody who gave a five to this. We're not going to talk about it. You don't have to identify yourself. Does anybody have a hunch as to why there might be two people in the room who think about it so differently? Sometimes somebody's like I'm the one who gave the one and here's what. I think That's happened a couple of times because it was their act. They showed up to have that conversation. I think being able to hold space for that. I'm the one who's holding the clicker. Nobody moves on unless I think it's done. I will sit with an awkward pause for over a minute and people are just like dude, like move, but like there's just something sometimes I just know that there's one person who hasn't said the thing yet And the thing that's happening in their brain is the pain of the awkward silence at a certain point gets higher than their fear of saying the thing. And so to end the awkward silence, they'll say the thing that needs to be said, and I've had so many people do like that was the most painful awkward silence but the most valuable thing that I got out of the session, because a lot of times you know the CEO or the leader of the team who's leading it. They're like all right, okay, so we're good, right, everybody's good, but everybody's not good. Seven out of 10 people are good, not nine out of 10 people are good, but that's the value, i think, of having a third party facilitator. The other thing is that being able to measure the flow of the day, right, and kind of know, hey, around 1030, we're gonna stand up and we're gonna move our legs, you know we're gonna do like a field game, you know, or like a camp counselor fun session where it has literally nothing to do with what we're doing, it's just team building. But then there's other things. You know, i think that one of my favorite things to do and it's really powerful. It's called the artifact dinner. So, again, prep work, but everyone is asked to bring something that they can hold in one hand. You know, something small that tells a story about themselves that everybody at the company doesn't know, and that's all the instructions there are. Right Is just bring an artifact, bring something you can hold in one hand that represents something about your life, your story, your journey that no one else in the company knows about you, and it's really amazing to see what happens. And that is one place where I will ask the CEO to go first and I will encourage them to lean towards vulnerability if they can, and say you don't have to contrive something. But if there is something that you as a leader have never really shared with the company, like if you can set the pace, if you can be the first one out of the gate with it, it'd be meaningful for the rest of the evening. And you know like, i've seen the dinner go for four or five hours and people are just like wait. Can I ask a question about that? Like they get into each other's stories. There was one company I worked with that had a certain executive who literally no one liked Like. I found out in the pre-work that, like this one person on the team like he thought that he was like buddy with everybody And like I heard from everyone, i was like so you know, is there anybody on the team that you know has been challenging or that you think is not gonna enjoy the offset as much They're like? oh yeah, this person And it was unanimous, it was like every other person And he shared a story of buying a piece of property for his sister who had had some illness And it was the piece of property that they'd always looked at as kids when they would go to visit their grandmother And it was an apple farm. And now she runs the apple farm And it's been a huge part of her healing and a huge part of her like stepping back into society after dealing with mental illness And now she's found the thing that she's really great at and her world is pretty confined to that space. But because of the success he was having at this company, he was able to do that And so he said I wanna say thank you to all of you for making this company so successful that I could provide that for my sister, and the whole table just lost it, like just lost it, but he went like ninth out of 10, you know, and he wasn't saying it to be like emotional, he just was like he said it pretty matter of factly, but everybody else at the table was like I never do that And so, creating those moments, it's taking time to work on the business instead of working in the business, and it's really, really valuable. And the same way that we talked about earlier about taking time off for us, taking a team out of the day to day and just giving them the chance to interact in a space that is different, with a different authority structure, right By having a facilitator in the room who is the authority for the day and decides where things happen. When everybody gets on the same playing field and all voices are equal, things come up that wouldn't have come up otherwise And I think that's, you know, that's something really fun And for me, you know, as the facilitator, i get to go to cool places all around the world and do these things and stay in amazing hotels and, you know, and curate meals and utilize the things that resorts and hotels have available as all right. This is the setting where we're going to have this conversation. This is the activity we're going to do that's going to lead to these thoughts. So it's yeah, it's a lot of fun for me.

Josiah: 8:33

It's very top of mind for hospitality leaders because I mean they're facing the same organizational dynamics I think that any industry faces, but also for their business. you know a lot of them are thinking, hey, more people need these gatherings. We have hotels, you know we can be the place where people can get together. I think the facilitating approaches is crucial. from what you mentioned, every organization I've been a part of one of the biggest challenges this group think and by pulling kind of people from both the ends of the spectrum you're disrupting that group think. I'm curious, outside of the core sessions themselves I don't know if any stories come to mind or best practices you found of outside, in the evenings, the mornings, the activities. How have those resorts or the spaces you've been in been conducive to the goals for the offsite?

Andy: 9:19

Yeah, i think that making sure that there's breakout space either having a room that's big enough to allow a small group of breakouts, or being able to have, you know, maybe side rooms or smaller spaces, you know, i think is a really important piece of the puzzle for the way that I like to lead things, because I like to constantly shuffle people and break people up, you know, into different groups. You know, and it'll be like I'll go through it. I'll say, you know, hey, i'm going to read three statements. If the statement is something that you agree with, stand up. I'll be like NSYNC is better than Backstreet Boys And it's incredible how many people have an opinion about this. So I'm like, okay, nsync over there, backstreet over there, all right, you know, have downloaded the new Taylor Swift album. And then now we've got four groups, right, so people that love Backstreet Boys and have downloaded Taylor Swift and etc. Right. And then it's like and play a musical instrument. And now we've eight groups and it's amazing, like you know, how you can have like, and it's not far off, the breakdown of like those groups and being equal. But then we'll split them out into eight groups and have, you know, like a 15 minute activity And then one person becomes the representative from that group to come back in And so being able to give you know you have enough space to get them up from the tables. Don't sit at your table the whole time, right? But like go take a walk, walk around the grounds and you get 20 minutes and it's cool. The people who stick closest to home tend to have less creative answers than those that go for a walk, those that go explore the grounds, those that get further away, and I think that, as a facilitator, i do my best to learn everything I can. That's like a five minute walk from wherever I am. I always fly in a day early, usually, or at least get there hours earlier than the clients do, just because I want to make sure that I understand. You know, i'll ask the GM Hey, what's the coolest spot that you've ever seen? a team pick a team photo take? Where is a meaningful place to have quiet conversation, right, things like that. And I think that for anybody who's trying to attract those types of events, being able to like say, hey, if your team wants to have the best group photo here, we've got three different locations If you want to have an intimate moment. That's not just in your conference room. That looks like every other conference room, no offense to anybody, but like they all look the same, right, they all have foldable, removable walls, right, they're not that unique. It doesn't matter what clever name you have. Whatever name you put on the outside it's it's still a conference room with with leather chairs and a glass tabletop and water glasses, right, but like, what happens outside of those spaces is, i think, where a lot of the magic is possible.

Josiah: 11:53

And what are the kind of role of amenities or activities as part of these offsets? You know, is there anything you look for you've appreciated in the places you've been?

Andy: 12:04

I think that something about a vista or a view, right, like the ability to like get up high and see something you know and just give people space to like, hey, we're lying up on the railing and like take three deep breaths, can reset a whole afternoon. Right, all right, after this we're coming outside and like three deep breaths and then we go back inside Done, that's way better than a coffee break. And I think that being able to know what's available to you, what's at your fingertips, is something that I think is really important And be able to, if you are the property, be able to suggest it, be able to say, hey, we're gonna have the food, we're gonna have the coffee, we're gonna have the. You know the break that we talked about, but if you wanna build it into your time, you know there's a really quick trail walk that just round the pond, but there's the view that a lot of people just don't. They don't get to, they don't know that they should go see that view And it's really great around four o'clock in the afternoon or really great at eight am in the morning or whatever it is. And if you just say that to the facilitator or to the person who's making the booking. You know they tell the facilitator hey, we wanna make sure that we build it in this break. We heard that this is an awesome thing that happens around this time of day, you know. Or something special we do here is, you know, everybody takes a shot of fireball at 6 pm, like whatever it is like, literally like make it the thing that's special to your spot I think is a cool is because that's what people remember, right, they remember the quirky, like, yes, they will do the thing with the notepads and they will do the thing with the post-it notes. But ultimately, like they're like yeah, but this was our group photo, like that was really cool.

Josiah: 13:35

You gotta create those peak moments right. Peak moments matter a lot. If you're a host, if you're a provider of hospitality, what I'm hearing from you is anticipating, you know, here is what a person participating in this event is gonna need, what they're gonna look for. You're creating surprise and delight. That's hospitality at its best, right.