The Expectations Offsite
The Expectations Offsite ideally kicks off the Program with a series of facilitated discussions covering senior leadership’s expectations of its management team in four key dimensions, each with four customizable expectations. We’ll work with seniors prior to the offsite to craft expectations that best serve their needs. The four dimensions the offsite covers are:
The Expectations Offsite ideally kicks off the Program with a series of facilitated discussions covering senior leadership’s expectations of its management team in four key dimensions, each with four customizable expectations. We’ll work with seniors prior to the offsite to craft expectations that best serve their needs. The four dimensions the offsite covers are:
The People Dimension
Our first dimension deals with how supervisors can build trust and connect with their direct reports while helping ensure an engaged and effective workforce.
The Programs Dimension
Our second dimension covers how supervisors should run their programs and deliver on mission and includes expectations related to domain mastery, resource management, customer service, and acting with integrity.
The Partnerships Dimension
Our third dimension looks at how supervisors cooperate and collaborate with peers and get things done across organizational boundaries by being corporate, respecting others, and promoting diversity and inclusion.
The Personal Growth Dimension
Our final dimension addresses the need for supervisors to continuously develop their leadership and management skills, improve their self-awareness, embrace opportunities to excel, and maintain wellness and balance.
Additional Offsite Sessions to Reinforce Expectations Discussions
For each expectation we provide a short introduction, drawing on relevant literature and our own leadership experiences, and then facilitate a discussion about what that expectation means in that team’s context. We provide the seniors with the questions in advance that we’ll be asking them and the team.
We offer a variety of additional offsite sessions and activities that reinforce the expectations discussions, including:
Icebreaker Session
We usually begin the first day exploring how and why attendees became managers and how each of them defines success. We then offer an aspirational definition of success that tees up the rest of the offsite content.
The View From the Front Office
This gives the senior manager or managers a chance to lay out the environment in which they operate. The goal is to share the challenges, demands, frustrations, and opportunities the unit faces, which provides key context for the expectations discussion.
People vs. Programs Exercise
This session asks team members to think about the tradeoffs of focusing on developing their people vs. delivering on programs and generates a discussion on the appropriate balance between leadership and management.
Blockers Exercise
This exercise explores possible roadblocks team members face in trying to meet the given expectations. It seeks to uncover possible systemic problems that might require the seniors’ attention, exposes everyone to the challenges that their peers face, and shares best practices for overcoming them.
Fireside Chat
Usually held after dinner on the first day of residential events, this session is a chance for the seniors to tell their personal stories in a way that demonstrates transparency while sharing key formative events and lessons from their careers. This session always receives high marks, as attendees appreciate how candid and personal the discussion is.
Finding Solutions
We can design and facilitate a session to tackle any tasks or problems our clients want, from addressing negative upward feedback to launching a strategic planning effort.
The Expectations Offsite ideally runs for a day and a half and includes social and bonding time the evening of the first day. We can also do a compressed, one-day version that covers the four dimensions above but leaves out several of the additional sessions.