Resources
Company Retreat Planning Resources
Gamification During a Company Retreat Can Level Up Your Team’s Engagement
Are you tired of the same old company retreats where everyone just sits in a circle, staring at a flip chart, nodding their heads like bobbleheads while someone drones on about synergy (cue the yawns)? If you’re ready to shake things up, add a dash of excitement, and actually get your team involved, consider gamification. […]
Team Building vs. Team Bonding: A Company Retreat Showdown
When it comes to company retreats, there’s always a bit of a debate about which is better (or even necessary): team building or team bonding. We of course love both, and we don’t think you should have to choose between the two. It’s more about implementing them correctly into your company retreat. What’s the difference […]
10 Questions to Ask Yourself When Planning a Company Retreat
Planning a company retreat is exciting for any company, but it’s also a bit like herding cats. Without a clear plan, things can go off the rails quite quickly. Before you dive headfirst into organizing a leadership retreat or a strategic planning getaway, sit for a few minutes. Talk to yourself, have a meeting with […]
Beyond the Conference Room: Outdoor Spaces for Strategic Retreats
Let’s face it—gathering in the same bland, stuffy boardroom year after year for your company retreat can suck the life out of even the most enthusiastic leadership team. You’ve seen it all before: fluorescent lights, a stack of coffee cups on the edge of the table, and a PowerPoint presentation that seems never-ending. But what […]
Tech-Free Retreats: Boosting Focus and Creativity in the Digital Age
Technology may make your business run well, but it can be a heavy distraction during a company retreat. While we do recommend using technology to your advantage in your strategic planning and leadership development sessions, it’s also important to unplug, disconnect, and step back from your devices as much as possible during your retreat. Why? […]
Food is More Important to Company Retreats Than You Think
When planning a company retreat, the agenda often focuses on team-building exercises, strategy sessions, leadership workshops, etc. What’s the one thing many companies forget (or at least take for granted)? It’s a critical element that can significantly influence the success of your retreat, and it’s often overlooked. We’re talking about the food! Yes, the culinary […]
What is the Best Time of Year for a Company Retreat?
The timing of a company retreat can be integral to its success. Sometimes, your company just needs a reset, your people need a push in the right direction, or a major change means that a new strategy must be made. Whatever the reason, a company retreat may be necessary to host in the not-too-distant future. […]
Navigating Leadership Development: Custom Retreats vs. Open Enrollment Programs
The pursuit of effective leadership development strategies often presents businesses with a crucial decision: should they organize a custom leadership retreat tailored to their specific needs or send their employees to an open enrollment program that bring together participants from various organizations? There are advantages of each approach, and some of them cross over between […]
How to Tell if a Leadership Retreat is Right for Your Business
Sometimes the best way to take steps forward in your business is to take one big step back to refocus and reenergize your team. We’re not talking about moving backwards; we’re talking about taking a step back to look at the big picture in your business. More specifically, we want you to take a good […]
How to Optimize Your Time During Your Next Leadership Retreat
Company retreats go by quickly. Trust us, we’ve hosted and facilitated enough of them. It may be a “long” weekend, but the time really flies by when you’re busy planning, executing, and enjoying everything you want to accomplish during the retreat. Time is limited, and it’s also valuable. We’ve seen businesses waste time with disorganization, […]
What Should Leadership Development Look Like in a Remote World?
What does leadership development look like in the modern world? Now that work environments have become more remote and hybrid, leaders are challenged with maintaining a team environment that cultivates its leaders, even when they’re not in the office. Work Culture is Changing It’s no secret that we have fully entered a new age in […]
How to Actually Get Results from Team Building Exercises
Gather around! It’s time for team building. First, we want everyone to take one shoe off and place it in a pile. Then, every person is going to grab a shoe that is not theirs and traverse the room trying to find the person it belongs to. Sound familiar? The shoe scramble (yes, it’s a […]
Company Retreats for Virtual Teams? Yeah, They Really Are That Important
It’s current year, and virtual teams are on the rise in the business world. That’s a great thing! Or is it a bad thing? We don’t really know, and we’re definitely not wading into that debate in the business world. We’ll let the people on LinkedIn have that argument for the next few decades. What […]
Why You Have to Have Team Activities at Your Company Retreat
No company retreat is complete without some type of team building activity, or two or three; we can’t get enough of them here at Sugar Lake Lodge. Why? Because team cohesion is one of the most important things a business can have. Your people are your company, and how well they work together determines how […]
The Roles Facilitators Play in Strategic Planning and Leadership Development
Retreat facilitators play a critical role in the planning, execution, and overall success of any company retreat. Whether you’re working on leadership development, strategic planning, board integration, or anything else during your business retreat, it pays to have facilitator on board. Why? Are facilitators just glorified guides? Are they there to tell you what you […]
Choosing a Company Retreat Location? Here’s What to Look for
Whether you’re planning a company retreat for a small business of 20 people or a full-scale corporate retreat for over 100, you need to find a location that is right for your team, business, and goals. Do you go to a local event center? Do you head off to a retreat location that’s out of […]
Planning a Corporate Retreat? Here’s Where to Begin
Planning a company retreat really doesn’t have to be a daunting process, at least when it’s done right. You can severely overcomplicate the issue if you step into the retreat planning process without knowing where you’re heading, which is why it’s best to get off on the right foot before you even begin to look […]
The Best Way to Measure the Impact of Leadership Development Programs
How do you measure the success of a leadership development program? It’s a qualitative measurement, but it’s also very possible to achieve. While it’s not always as clean cut as watching a number go up and down, there are ways to determine if your last leadership development retreat was successful. Every leadership development retreat should […]
Why Some Leadership Development Programs Fail
Why do some leadership development programs fail? While everything can seem to go well on your leadership retreat—from the travel to the activities you’ve planned—it can sometimes feel like your employees didn’t get what they should have from the curriculum you pieced together. It’s frustrating. You’ve undoubtedly worked hard to plan a trip, get everyone […]
How Experiential Learning Enhances Leadership Development Programs
What is experiential learning, and why is it an integral part of the leadership development process? For decades, leadership development courses and retreats have relied upon seminars, lectures, lessons, and other sorts of formal educational tools to shape the new leaders of tomorrow’s businesses. While these things have worked in the past, they are far […]
The 3 Things You Must Have at Your Company Retreat
Whether it’s that time of the year again—the time to plan the annual company retreat—or this is your first time creating an outing of this magnitude, planning is the key to success. No corporate retreat can be successful by just “winging it,” and while a bit of flexibility and surprise can be a good thing, […]
Why a Lakeside Resort is the Ideal Place for a Leadership Retreat
If you’re in the business of leadership development, you don’t need us to tell you the many benefits of leadership retreats. All you have to do is talk to the people who have attended a reputable retreat and you will see the difference they can make. These focused sessions are well thought out and executed, […]
What No One Tells You About Planning an Effective Strategic Planning Session
There’s a lot of chatter in every industry about the essential components of a strategic plan. Simple searches on the Internet will lead you to lectures, seminars, books, and all forms of content that outline what goes into a strategic plan, but a lot of the advice is all the same. The simplest strategic planning […]
Why Retreats Are Essential to the Strategic Planning Process
You know strategic planning is an essential part of your business. You know that getting the whole team together to brainstorm and finalize the plan must happen. You know that finding the right place to do it is vital. Now you face a pivotal decision: where do you hold your strategic planning session? You could […]
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