4 min read//
Every year, the leadership teams of companies go on a pilgrimage to the countryside to think big thoughts and plan big plans. They may also drink big drinks and eat big food, but the real purpose of the C-suite away day is to get out of the office—where they know no strategic work can get done.
But why do we need away days to think properly? And how can we maximize the value of those days when we do strategic work and ensure that we can bring back the magic from the countryside?
Intuitively, we know the office isn’t the best place to think outside the box. The environment where we’re expected to work literally is a box. But there’s more to it than that. As leaders, we want to think long term, “be strategic,” and keep our focus on the big picture. No one wants to see their bosses and leaders fuss about trivial matters. Yet when they’re in the office, that’s exactly what many end up doing.
The natural inclination to think in the ultra-short term is reinforced by two forces. First, there are pull factors dragging us back into the noisy present. These come in the form of “hot stimuli”—like loud and obnoxious colleagues—which undermine our ability to make sensible short-term sacrifices for long-term gains. Our lives are a heady broth of hot stimuli, and we find it too easy to give attention to them.
Then there are push factors, repelling us from thinking productively about the long-term future. Primarily, we suffer from what could be described as a psychological allergy to uncertainty, an inflammation of the mind resulting from a lack of confidence in our expectations. This fear of uncertainty is stressful.
The problem is that while the ultra-short term is characterized by a great deal of predictability, the long-term future is full of uncertainty. Thinking deeply into the future, therefore, is a cognitive slog, and attempting it in an environment filled with the soothing sights and sounds of nature makes it a little easier. But do meeting planners really maximize the return on the substantial investment of creating a situation low in hot stimuli where we can confront the demons of uncertainty?
The biggest risk to a successful away day is simply re-creating the box we are trying to escape, which can happen in the rush to seek “alignment.” The advantage of getting the company’s big brains to think bigger is in drawing out the diverse perspectives they bring—not their ability to align. What they actually need to do is to shake people out of the established ruts of thinking, which you can achieve by applying the tools of foresight. Specifically, this means getting people to consider possibilities beyond the routine, by removing constraints, or adding them, or taking the perspective of a competitor or a customer.
In other words, it requires stretching people’s imaginations.
Now, you might be asking, how do you keep that sense of creativity, innovation, and confidence in the face of uncertainty when everyone gets back to the office? With the fires burning, it’s all too easy to forget about the strategy and immediately pollute our to-do lists with urgent but meaningless tasks. Avoiding the collapse into short-termism requires discipline of the mind and a different approach to our daily work. Here are some suggestions:
WHY IT’S HARD TO BE CREATIVE IN THE OFFICE
GETTING OUT OF A MIND RUT
First, test every action for its relevance to the vision. No matter how furiously the fire is burning, you don’t necessarily need to put it out. If you know that you’ll be better off employing your time and mental capacity elsewhere, then that’s where you need to focus your attention. Yes, it might be satisfying to fix a problem, but you could just end up spending your whole life fixing problems and making no progress on the strategy.
Second, burn your to-do list. The to-do list is supposed to guide how we spend our time, yet it almost never includes a time element in it. As a result, the criteria for items to join the list is usually our confidence in being able to cross them off quickly, rather than their value to the organization. By estimating the time to complete the task and committing it to the calendar, you’re more likely to raise the bar on what gets done.
Finally, make every day an away day. This doesn’t mean spending the whole day fantasizing about alternative realities, but it does require that you schedule in some time to reflect on what you’re doing, test the assumptions on which your actions are based, and ask “What if . . .?” By rekindling the spirit of the away day, you’re more likely to find meaning in what you’re doing and keep your head above water even when the problems begin to mount.
The capacity of humans to consider alternative futures and collaborate on the resulting plans sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. But sometimes in our work, we act on the most basic of instincts.
For the C-suite retreat to really succeed in its objectives, we need to ensure that the day itself allows us to look at the future through a range of lenses and that we take that long-term perspective back to our desks afterward.
Ren Ecosystem