????Dear Annie: I guess it is true that no good deed goes unpunished, because our office holiday party -- which took me six weeks to organize -- was such a hit that now my boss has put me in charge of a three-day management retreat scheduled for mid-February. The location, a resort on a Caribbean island, has been booked, but so far the agenda is a blank sheet of paper, which is up to me to fill.
????I've never been responsible for planning one of these before, so I really don't know what I'm doing, but I'd like this meeting to be unique and memorable, and as productive as possible. Can you and your readers give me any pointers? — Smitty
????Dear Smitty: Richard Moran sure can. A former Accenture (ACN) consultant and longtime Silicon Valley venture capitalist, Moran is CEO of Accretive Solutions, a Chicago-based consulting and recruiting firm.
????He's also the author of a string of smart and irreverent guides to success in business, including Never Confuse a Memo With Reality and Fear No Yellow Stickies. His new book, Sins and CEOs: Lessons from Leaders and Losers That Will Change Your Career, contains a chapter that might interest you. It's entitled "Rome Is Burning and We're Off-site."
????"Contrary to popular belief, retreats are really hard work for all who attend," Moran says. "Foremost, there's nowhere to hide. Anyone who monopolizes the airtime is assumed to be jockeying for a promotion. Anyone who doesn't participate is assumed to have checked out."
????Trying to strike the right balance and still get some work done tends to stress people out, so Moran -- a veteran of many great and not-so-great off-sites -- recommends giving everyone a chance to decompress by building some genuine downtime into the schedule.
????"Don't close the windows," he says. "Why go someplace beautiful if there is no time for the pool or golf, and people are locked in dark rooms from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.?" A total lack of leisure breeds resentment, he observes, and that can torpedo the whole event.
????One San Francisco financial company he knows of held a crucial annual long-range planning meeting at an exclusive ski resort, and then gave people no chance to ski. "The attendees were instructed that they could ski between 7 and 9 a.m. or after 5," Moran says. "Unfortunately, the ski lifts opened at 9 and stopped running at 5." That made people "so grouchy the entire time that nothing was accomplished." Avoid that.
????Some more of Moran's tips you might find useful:
????? "People want to learn at meetings, whether it's how to construct an effective plan or understand market dynamics," Moran says. So "bring in speakers who can teach and entertain at the same time, and keep the sessions short."
