Dan Martell - July 27, 2020


How To Plan a Team Offsite That Strengthens Your Company

Hosted by
Dan Martell
Mentioned
Patrick Lencioni Vern Harnish Geno Wickman Describe
How To Create a Business That Gives Back To The World Why SaaS Founders Sell with Kevin, CEO and co-founder @ SureSwift.com - Escape Velocity Show #33

Episode Stats


Length

11 minutes

Words per minute

198.38

Word count

2,225

Sentence count

105

Harmful content

Toxicity

2

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Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, I teach you how to plan a team offsite that builds connection and clarity so that you don t waste a bunch of time, try to overload the calendar, schedule, and get frustrated, and more importantly, what you want is to have people walk away with a clear sense of purpose and drive so that they can move the business forward.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.080 Hey there, Dan Martell here,
00:00:01.080 serial entrepreneur, investor, and creator of SaaS Academy.
00:00:03.280 In this video, I'm gonna teach you how to plan
00:00:05.440 a team offsite that builds connection and clarity
00:00:09.080 so that you don't waste a bunch of time,
00:00:11.040 try to overload the calendar, schedule,
00:00:13.280 people get frustrated, and more importantly,
00:00:15.420 what you want is to have people walk away
00:00:17.180 with a clear sense of purpose and rocks and strategy
00:00:20.520 so that they can move the business forward.
00:00:22.640 Be sure to stay at the end
00:00:23.480 because I'm gonna make it easy on you.
00:00:25.120 I'm gonna share with you how to get access
00:00:26.600 to my team offsite planner worksheet
00:00:29.520 It's even got some specific exercise you could be doing
00:00:31.920 with your team to deepen that build trust.
00:00:35.260 Deepen the connection and build that trust.
00:00:37.000 Let's get going.
00:00:50.440 So I've been building companies for over 20 years.
00:00:53.340 I've hired over 500 people in various companies.
00:00:57.080 I've exited, I've sold, I've scaled,
00:00:59.160 I've invested, but when I started,
00:01:01.620 I was literally the worst leader as they came.
00:01:05.320 And luckily I read a bunch of incredible books.
00:01:07.720 One of them was Good to Great,
00:01:08.680 where talked about just the concept
00:01:11.180 of getting everybody on the team
00:01:12.480 focused in the right direction.
00:01:13.720 They call it the right seats on the bus.
00:01:16.600 But more importantly is just the value of getting,
00:01:19.620 taking your team and getting out of the office
00:01:21.900 and doing an offsite.
00:01:23.020 So typically when people ask me like who that should be,
00:01:25.060 it's executive leadership team.
00:01:27.360 And just cause you have the right people
00:01:28.860 doesn't mean you're gonna have a great meeting.
00:01:30.060 You know, when I started, it was painful
00:01:32.660 because I wanted to accomplish way too much in the meeting.
00:01:35.120 I was trying to accomplish more project management,
00:01:37.080 not really understanding the value of it
00:01:39.340 is to deepen the connection and build trust amongst the team.
00:01:42.620 So I went on a journey and I've studied
00:01:44.560 about 12 different books around company scale
00:01:48.020 and leadership and growth.
00:01:49.540 A lot of Patrick Lencioni's books,
00:01:52.400 you know, Scaling Up, Vern Harnish,
00:01:54.720 Gino Wickman, Traction and a bunch of others.
00:01:57.300 And what I've discovered is a different process
00:02:00.520 I'm gonna walk you through today
00:02:02.080 to get it to the point where, you know,
00:02:03.580 I just had my leadership offsite.
00:02:06.520 And, you know, not only did everybody walk away
00:02:09.380 with the clear sense of priorities and drive,
00:02:13.460 but more importantly, my goal is when they,
00:02:16.660 after they attend, that they feel more connected
00:02:19.540 and understand the motivations and trust
00:02:22.200 from the rest of the team members,
00:02:23.020 because that, I will tell you,
00:02:24.900 will drive things more than anything.
00:02:27.280 So let's get into it.
00:02:28.640 Number one, prep the plan.
00:02:30.820 So before you have your offsite,
00:02:33.460 the key is to do the research, get the data,
00:02:36.220 pull the reports, get the surveys,
00:02:39.340 make sure that people come ready.
00:02:41.500 If you are the leader,
00:02:42.480 you might wanna give your team key outcomes
00:02:45.020 or targets to plan for the next 12 months
00:02:47.000 if you're doing your yearly offsite
00:02:48.380 or maybe a quarterly offsite the next quarter,
00:02:51.060 but giving people enough information
00:02:53.700 and asking them to come ready with a plan,
00:02:55.980 some strategies so that we can edit together
00:02:58.500 we're not creating from scratch
00:03:00.580 is probably the most important thing.
00:03:02.660 I've seen too often with teams that I coach,
00:03:04.840 when they do their offsite,
00:03:06.060 they essentially start from scratch and build from there.
00:03:08.300 I want people to come in,
00:03:09.800 I have a framework I teach called the Slingshot Planner,
00:03:12.020 but the concept is they should bring to you
00:03:14.780 the next three year and quarterly projects
00:03:17.980 that they wanna advocate for to create the momentum
00:03:21.960 in their area of the business.
00:03:23.560 So make sure that you not only share with them
00:03:25.580 your estimates and targets and ambitions for the next year
00:03:29.380 or whatever the period you're planning for,
00:03:31.620 but that they come ready to provide some input,
00:03:34.540 some key projects that they feel committed
00:03:37.260 to moving the business forward,
00:03:38.700 then you can co-create together and you can edit.
00:03:41.500 You're not creating from scratch.
00:03:43.060 So prep the plan.
00:03:44.300 Number two, paint the vision.
00:03:46.420 It's very important.
00:03:47.740 And sometimes we feel like we're like a broken record
00:03:50.260 and we keep repeating ourselves and repeating ourselves.
00:03:52.020 But it's important that right at the beginning,
00:03:54.480 We remind everybody, what is the 10-year target?
00:03:57.000 What is the three-year vision?
00:03:58.140 What are we accomplishing over the next year
00:04:00.460 so that we can get everybody laser focus
00:04:02.560 on the key outcomes that we're measuring our success against
00:04:07.060 so that they can rally around that
00:04:09.160 and come up with the right strategies
00:04:10.680 that are gonna drive that forward.
00:04:12.920 It's too important for me to assume
00:04:16.080 that everybody already knows the vision.
00:04:18.380 It's really important to paint it again,
00:04:20.300 to describe it, describe how it feels,
00:04:22.100 describe what it looks like when we get there,
00:04:23.860 Describe the energy in the office,
00:04:26.100 the ambitions amongst the team,
00:04:28.120 the quality that people will be working with at that level,
00:04:30.980 the kind of partners we're gonna have,
00:04:32.260 the accolades we're gonna achieve in the marketplace,
00:04:35.000 but make sure that we paint that vision
00:04:37.120 to get everybody aligned.
00:04:39.080 Number three, build trust.
00:04:40.980 So for me, and I've mentioned this already,
00:04:43.120 is connection and trust is everything.
00:04:46.380 If you don't have trust amongst your coworkers,
00:04:49.440 especially at the executive leadership team,
00:04:51.140 it's gonna be really hard to move
00:04:53.820 any project outcome agenda forward
00:04:56.660 because everybody's gonna be wondering
00:04:58.680 what's their motivation, why are they doing this?
00:05:00.880 So I'm gonna share with you a quick exercise
00:05:03.260 that I do every year for my team's yearly planning
00:05:06.520 or offsite, and it's really just about going around
00:05:09.140 everybody and asking them the plus and minus it.
00:05:10.960 So real quick, everybody writes down the people
00:05:14.800 on the team, all their names, okay?
00:05:16.540 So ideally you don't have more than seven people
00:05:18.120 on your executive leadership team.
00:05:19.120 So let's say you list everybody's name
00:05:20.860 And then on the column next to it,
00:05:22.640 there's two columns for each person.
00:05:24.080 There's things that you think they're really great at
00:05:25.960 and an area of improvement.
00:05:27.320 So everybody on the team evaluates everybody else.
00:05:30.020 And then one person at a time, you go around the table
00:05:33.120 and everybody shares that feedback with the person, okay?
00:05:37.680 They share, I like to go worst thing first
00:05:39.820 and then you leave on a high note.
00:05:40.920 So, you know, I think that this is an area
00:05:44.720 that you might wanna look to improve,
00:05:45.820 but here's something that you do that's really great.
00:05:47.960 And then what happens is everybody's open and honest.
00:05:50.620 There's no holding back.
00:05:51.680 I think too often people feel a certain way,
00:05:53.460 but they're never given permission
00:05:54.460 or they don't feel comfortable enough to share that.
00:05:56.540 I'm asking for permission from the group
00:05:58.720 and encouraging them all to share those perspectives.
00:06:02.600 Again, it's their hallucination.
00:06:04.100 If you wanna say it from that way,
00:06:05.840 say my hallucination is that you are very forgetful
00:06:08.580 and you don't write anything down.
00:06:09.700 You can do that, right?
00:06:11.000 But you're also an incredible visionary
00:06:13.240 and your drive and passion is really impressive,
00:06:16.660 as an example.
00:06:17.960 But what happens is everybody shares that,
00:06:19.540 everybody normalizes their sentiment
00:06:21.460 for the other team members.
00:06:22.460 And then what I do is then ask everybody to go around
00:06:24.880 and ask what's one commitment they're willing to make
00:06:27.120 to the rest of the team that they're gonna tackle
00:06:29.220 in the next quarter or the next year.
00:06:31.140 And then that just gives everybody a chance to up level
00:06:34.140 and kind of upgrade their skills
00:06:36.480 based on real feedback from the team
00:06:38.300 so it makes them a better teammate
00:06:40.860 for everybody else involved.
00:06:42.100 So that's one example, but you need to open up the trust.
00:06:45.860 You might even do a personality assessment
00:06:47.720 and then review everybody's score as a group.
00:06:49.920 You might do some trust falls.
00:06:51.700 I joke because I don't think that that's very helpful.
00:06:54.080 But you wanna just share some personal stuff as a group.
00:06:56.820 As much vulnerability as you want to allow
00:06:59.820 and really as the leader,
00:07:01.080 if you're watching this as a founder,
00:07:02.120 you've gotta go first and you've gotta be
00:07:03.640 the most vulnerable and the most open to feedback
00:07:06.060 so that it sets the stage for everybody else.
00:07:08.400 Number four, retest.
00:07:10.040 So what this means is you've probably already sat down,
00:07:13.000 created your mission, your vision, your values,
00:07:15.680 your go-to-market, how you sell in the market.
00:07:17.860 If you haven't, make that a key outcome
00:07:21.400 from your first offsite.
00:07:22.780 But every company kind of at the 12 people plus,
00:07:26.180 you should have those things kind of locked and loaded.
00:07:28.180 But reevaluate them, retest them, look at the values
00:07:31.460 and say, are these things that we're hiring firing against?
00:07:34.300 If they're not, then they're just words on a piece of paper
00:07:36.400 that nobody really believes in.
00:07:38.160 Is the mission crystal clear?
00:07:39.480 Have you pivoted the product a little bit
00:07:41.420 and you've got to reset the mission?
00:07:43.060 Whatever it is, my whole thing is,
00:07:44.900 is when we get together as a group,
00:07:46.360 especially at the end of the year,
00:07:47.380 it's a great opportunity for us to retest
00:07:51.160 those key elements that are driving forces for our business.
00:07:54.340 And if they're not serving us anymore,
00:07:56.360 open up the discussion to maybe reevaluate and edit them.
00:07:59.660 And number five, map closure.
00:08:02.180 So you do all this great work, you get connected,
00:08:05.980 you do some strategic planning,
00:08:07.580 you figure out what the big rocks are,
00:08:09.180 everybody's aligned with that,
00:08:10.660 we're gonna drive forward in the next year,
00:08:12.700 three years, et cetera.
00:08:14.320 Then it's about taking those rocks
00:08:16.680 and mapping them forward into a plan.
00:08:19.380 So what I like to do is get really detailed
00:08:21.560 on the next 12 months per quarter
00:08:24.120 and figure out what are the big rocks per person on the team.
00:08:27.900 Ideally, every quarter, I call it two enhancements,
00:08:30.800 one upgrade, so essentially one net new project.
00:08:35.140 So two things that will amplify a current result
00:08:38.080 that you're making, so a key project or a big rock,
00:08:40.360 and then one thing that's a net new per quarter.
00:08:43.180 Now, this is not a hard and fast kind of rule,
00:08:47.200 but I just feel like too often people,
00:08:49.200 when you look at their big rocks on their list,
00:08:51.120 it's like all new stuff,
00:08:52.700 when there's still things that are currently working
00:08:54.660 that they could amplify.
00:08:56.080 So I'm a big fan of constraining and say,
00:08:57.660 hey, what are the two things that are working
00:08:58.980 you're gonna make better this quarter, Q1,
00:09:01.000 and then what's a new thing you're gonna attack in Q1
00:09:03.500 and kind of set that same pace.
00:09:05.000 Everybody on the team locks that in.
00:09:06.980 You look at the outcome goals, metrics,
00:09:09.440 and key data points that you're gonna aim for for the year,
00:09:12.900 and then you work backwards and break those
00:09:15.040 into minimum quarterly goals.
00:09:17.740 And then per quarter, you blow it out for the months.
00:09:20.600 So everything should map from a month to a quarter
00:09:24.160 to the next quarter to the year
00:09:26.040 in a spreadsheet from a data point.
00:09:28.060 And if you've seen my training called the Weekly Sync,
00:09:30.340 you can search my YouTube channel for that.
00:09:33.280 I talk about the scorecard
00:09:34.740 and the Precision Scorecard's another video as well.
00:09:36.860 So Weekly Sync and Precision Scorecard kind of fit into this.
00:09:39.280 But we need to essentially set those rocks
00:09:41.200 and set the measurement for those rocks
00:09:42.780 so that we have a pulse to progression throughout the year.
00:09:47.240 And those are the mapping a closure
00:09:49.780 at the end of our offsite
00:09:51.320 to make sure that we capture all this great strategizing
00:09:54.260 and reviewing and team building and connection,
00:09:56.460 but it actually moves the business forward.
00:09:59.440 Five key strategies to have an incredible team offsite.
00:10:02.360 Number one, prep the plan.
00:10:04.660 Number two, paint a vision.
00:10:06.500 Number three, build trust.
00:10:08.320 Number four, retest.
00:10:09.980 and number five, map closure.
00:10:13.300 So as I mentioned at the beginning of this episode,
00:10:14.940 I wanna share with you an exclusive resource
00:10:16.740 called the Offsite Team Planner.
00:10:18.860 You can click the link below to download your copy.
00:10:21.580 In it, I talk about kind of the day one or day two.
00:10:24.460 If you're doing a one day offsite,
00:10:25.820 then just say morning and afternoon equivalents.
00:10:28.240 But the way I think about it is day one is retro.
00:10:30.840 We're gonna take our lessons learned,
00:10:32.540 we're gonna review our previous period
00:10:33.940 to make sure that we're learning and we're iterating
00:10:35.920 and figure out what the opportunity is.
00:10:37.240 It's not there to criticize.
00:10:39.000 And I've got the exercises in that worksheet
00:10:41.140 as well as day two, how do we plan,
00:10:43.360 what do we need to set going forward
00:10:45.400 to make sure that we actually leverage
00:10:47.000 the time we're together to solve some big issues
00:10:49.440 and discussions and then also lock that in
00:10:51.780 into the projects that we're gonna move forward.
00:10:54.100 To hit our goals, you can click the link below
00:10:56.140 to download your copy.
00:10:57.180 If you like this video, smash the like button,
00:10:58.960 subscribe to my channel.
00:11:00.760 And if there's anybody you think this could serve,
00:11:02.440 feel free to share it with them directly.
00:11:04.840 As per usual, I wanna challenge you
00:11:06.300 to live a bigger life and a bigger business
00:11:08.160 and I'll see you next Monday.
00:11:09.740 I don't like trust falls. 1.00
00:11:11.340 No, well they're dumb. 1.00