How often does your leadership team meet for at least a full day together?
Fred Wilson, legendary VC, wrote a recent post: “Remote, Hybrid or In-Person?” in which he talked about how he feels hybrid is here to stay, He then noted a quandary we face:
People are happier with flexibility around where they work.
Companies, teams, and organizations are happier when people are working together.
He then talked through different thoughts and ideas, but one, in particular, leapt off the page for me:
Our portfolio companies used to do exec team offsites a few times a year. A few of them are now doing them monthly. That makes sense to me. I can’t imagine an effective exec team that isn’t in person together at least once a month. And yet so many of the exec teams I have exposure to are not spending nearly enough time together right now and have not for the last few years. This same thought can be extrapolated to any team in any company.
in 2015 and 2016 I worked with a large organisation where their exec team, dispersed as they were around Canada, flew in to meet together every month for two full days. Not just the two days of meetings, but two evenings together too. I was an observer and sounding board at those meetings for about a year.
What were my takeaways from having monthly meetings for 48 hours? Well, in addition to this creating a tight team who understood each other well, the flow of the meetings was hugely effective. Knowing we met each month meant we could allow time to really get into the meaty conversations, as well as take time to look at deep strategy.
This is in marked contrast to exec teams that (as I see often) meet once a week or every two weeks for an hour in person or on Teams/Zoom. That only allows time for quick updates and a few fire-fighting actions. Those exec teams then likely meet for 48 hours or more only once or a few times a year.
In this hybrid world, we need to meet smarter, and sometimes that means handling the operational things remotely but putting more time into the face-to-face team meetings.
So…How often does your leadership team meet for at least a full day together?
PS the meeting space above is a favourite of mine in Cayman, at George Town Yacht Club. I have used it often for leadership team meetings where I am tasked with facilitating them. I always prefer to go offsite for such meetings, yet this one is in easy reach of people’s offices, so they don’t have to change their travel patterns.