It’s the end of another year and although some still struggle with COVID and its aftermath, it’s time to set aside time to look back at your successes and challenges in 2022 and strategically plan for 2023. It can seem daunting to do but as ABB embarks on our annual Leadership Retreat, I share with you our approach to get the most out of our time spent together.
- Appreciate that although there is a hard cost associated with pulling your senior leadership away from the office, it is critical to do a structured evaluation of how things are going; what went well and what didn’t and how to move forward. Even if the year was great, there are always things that can be better and ways to move forward to ensure you and your team are doing everything you can to achieve your business goals and live your mission, vision and values.
- Having an agenda for work hours and play hours is important to ensuring maximum value. A simple way to set the structure for your retreat is to conduct a SWOT analysis as the core of the retreat layered with teambuilding, dinners, and other opportunities for your team to get to know each other better and enjoy their time with you and each other.
SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats and is a regularly utilized tool in the corporate world. What better way to debrief 2022 and plan for 2023 than to look at where you are with respect to your greatest strengths and weaknesses and what threats and opportunities you anticipate on the horizon.
To make the best of your time together, have each team member write, from their perspective, the SWOTs and compile the responses ahead of the retreat, on oversized Post It Notes hung on the wall of the venue or sent to each attendee ahead of time through a shared forum like MS Teams. Color code those that are consistent across the team. The goal is to drill down into the top 5 in each category. Structure the meeting to schedule time to review the Strengths and how you maintain them through the upcoming year. Spend the majority of the time addressing the Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.
As you determine which initiatives you’re going to focus on in 2023, be sure to allocate the right team, budget and timeline to achieve these goals. Your biggest risks as you move forward are failing to recognize the most impactful weaknesses, opportunities and/or threats or underestimating the time and resources needed to accomplish each project you agree upon. Most Everything Takes More Effort Than You Think!
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