The executive offsite: turning a group of executives into a team
You're planning an executive offsite. Around the table are people who each run something big: a function, a region, a business unit. Every one of them is good at leading their own team.
The harder part is leading together. When the organisation is changing, it needs an executive team that thinks as one, not a set of strong leaders each defending their own patch.
What makes a good executive offsite?
Time spent on the decisions only the executive team can make, honest debate between people who usually defend their own areas, and leaving as one team with one story. The best executive offsites change how the team behaves on Monday.
Five things to think about before your executive offsite
What can only this team decide? Fill the offsite with those decisions. Everything else can be delegated or emailed.
Who is everyone's first team? Most executives put their own function first. Ask whether this team comes first.
Where are you competing with each other? Budgets, people, priorities. Name it, or it plays out in the corridors.
Can you disagree in the room? Agreement in the meeting and resistance afterwards is the most expensive habit an executive team can have.
What story will you all tell? Leave with one story every executive tells their own teams, in their own words.
Why the Big Bold Mindset fits an executive offsite
The Big Bold Mindset® is a way of thinking for achieving big bold goals in a changing world. Its starting point is simple: you can't navigate a new world using an old set of charts.
When an organisation is changing, its executive team has to be the first to redraw its charts, and to draw the same ones. An executive offsite is where that happens.
The Big Bold Mindset® is built on 21 principles, each with a practical tool. These five speak directly to an executive team.
Five principles for an executive offsite
Diversify Your Influence: what you see is all there is. Whose view are we missing at this table?
Agree on Values: values on the wall mean nothing, so live them. Which do we live as an executive team, and which don't we?
Create Through Conflict: struggle well, together. How will we disagree in the room instead of the corridor?
Calculate Your Risks: is the safe option really that safe? What's the risk of standing still?
Rewrite the Narrative: build a shared story you both want. What's the one story all of us will tell?
Where a keynote fits in an executive offsite
Executive teams often bring in an outside voice to open their offsite. A keynote can say what's hard to say from inside the team, and gives everyone the same starting point before the real decisions begin.
Built for your team, not taken off the shelf
Every audience is different, and every leadership team is facing its own set of issues. So no two of Caspar's keynotes are the same.
Before the day, Caspar does a deep dive into your world: what's changing, what matters most to you, and what you need people to think and do differently. Where it helps, he speaks to several of your senior leaders to get a wide view of what's really going on.
Then he crafts a keynote specifically for your offsite, applying the Big Bold Mindset principles that fit your challenges. Not the talk he gave last week, but one built for your team.
About Caspar Craven
Caspar Craven is the creator of The Big Bold Mindset® and a leadership keynote speaker. He has spoken at events in over 38 countries, for over 400 organisations going through change.
Before speaking, he spent five years at KPMG Corporate Finance, was CFO of a fast-growth tech company through its sale to private equity, and co-founded and sold a tech business. He has sailed around the world twice: first in the BT Global Challenge, then as skipper with his wife and three children under ten.
His lesson from both worlds: put people first and the results will follow. See Caspar's keynotes.
“Amazing in a really good way. It went down way better than I had hoped for. People have been talking about it and continue to talk about it and every day for the last two weeks I've been getting positive feedback from different people.”
Caspar has worked with organisations including BAE Systems, Burberry, GSK, Intuit, INEOS Styrolution, Johnson & Johnson, Nuffield Health, Pearson, Sage, Suntory and Thales.
Executive offsite questions
What is an executive offsite?
A meeting away from the office where the executive team steps back from running their own areas to agree direction, priorities and how they'll lead together.
Is an executive offsite the same as an SLT offsite?
Very close. The executive team is usually the most senior leaders, and in many organisations it's the same group as the SLT.
What should be on an executive offsite agenda?
The decisions only this team can make, the organisation's direction, how the team works together, and the story you'll take back to your own teams.
How do you get executives to work as one team?
Agree that this team comes first, make disagreement safe in the room, and share goals that no one can hit alone.
How long should an executive offsite be?
One to two days. Two days gives time for strategy and for how the team works together.
Should an executive offsite have an outside speaker?
An outside speaker can challenge the team's thinking without the politics, and give everyone a shared language for the rest of the offsite.
Why do executive offsites fail?
Executives defend their own areas, the hard topics are avoided, and nothing changes in how the team behaves afterwards.
How do you follow up after an executive offsite?
Agree a few commitments with owners and dates, and review them at every executive meeting until they're done.
Can a keynote be tailored to our leadership team?
Yes, and it should be. Caspar starts with a deep dive into your challenges, often speaking to several senior leaders, then builds the keynote around what matters most to your team.
Offsite and retreat guides
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