Beyond The Away Day
Beyond the Away Day
How are you spending your away day this year? My socials have recently been filled with photos of smiling teams spending time together, something I love.
I’ve seen paddleboards, campfires, long tables of good food, walking meetings, treasure hunts and people laughing together in matching t-shirts.
Away days are full of celebration, reflection, bringing new team members up to speed, and a deliberate investment in helping a growing team stay connected.
Then Alice Galsworthy, COO of Mother Root, shared and interesting post that caught my eye. Read the full post here.
She questioned our default approach to team bonding. For many organisations, it's still "Let's all go to the pub." And while that works brilliantly for some people, it excludes others, people who
- don't drink.
- have caring responsibilities.
- are exhausted after a demanding day.
- Are dreading trying to hold a conversation in a crowded bar.
Instead, Mother Root (if you haven't tried the drink - what are you waiting for?), deliberately creates different kinds of opportunities for people to connect. Some are in the morning. Some are quieter. Some are active. Some are reflective. And once a year, the whole team spends time away together. Each activity was chosen with intentionality behind it.
When businesses are small, connection happens by accident, just being around each other is enough to create a cohesive culture.
As businesses grow, connection no longer happens by accident. There are just too many people to accidentally bump into or catch up with. More meetings, decisions, competing priorities and layers of people fill our diaries. This is when growth becomes a business risk; creating silos and pulling teams apart if it isn’t intentionally designed.
Culture isn’t built on the away day
I’ve designed, organised, facilitated, commissioned and overseen hundreds of away days. There is always an assumption that they create the culture. They don’t. They reveal what your culture is like, but they don’t create it.
If people trust each other, you'll notice it.
If people feel safe enough to disagree respectfully, admit mistakes and ask difficult questions, you'll notice it.
If your values genuinely influence decisions (rather than only sitting in your brand, or even worse only pinned on your wall) you'll notice that too.
And if those foundations aren't there, no amount of paddleboarding, yoga, scavenger hunts or evening BBQs will magically build them over a day or two.
Culture is created by what happens in every meeting, every difficult conversation and every leadership decision throughout the year.
Three questions every founder and leader should ask
As organisations scale, I think there are three questions worth asking.
1. Are we creating belonging, or simply organising events?
One of the things I loved about Alice's post was the reminder that connection doesn't look the same for everyone.
Inclusive cultures are built by recognising that people connect differently. You won’t find that in a one off social activity.
Creating a culture where everyone experiences belonging, in their own way, is essential as you grow. A conversation over coffee. A walk together. Learning together. Creating together. Or simply having enough space to be themselves.
Belonging isn't created by treating everyone the same.
2. Do our values still connect people together?
When a business is small, the values are unwritten and everywhere. They consistently show up in the brand; a the reflection of a small team that created it. They’re in conversations with the founder and in every decision. They’re impossible to miss.
As the business grows, the mission and values become diluted unless they are intentionally grown and bring people back to why their work is meaningful.
The best offsites reconnect people to the reason we all came here in the first place. Why this business matters to everyone becomes the thread that joins new people with those who've been there from the beginning.
3. What happens on Monday morning?
Creating a brilliant atmosphere for two days is the easy bit. Beautiful surroundings, great food, shared experiences and being away from the pressure of day to day work stress all lend themselves to creating a great event.
But is this aligned to your culture? Does that same feeling exist when everyone returns to work? Do people still feel heard? Do they still trust each other? Do they still feel able to challenge ideas? Do leaders continue creating opportunities for connection in ordinary working life?
These are the places where your culture exists, in the 250 working days of the year, not in a great away day.
Growth needs intentional culture growth
One of the biggest shifts I see in female founders and leaders is recognising that leadership and culture aren't things you focus on once you've finished growing.
Culture needs consistent and intentional nurturing to grow the business and brand.
Customers buy the brand values and the business culture is the source of those. ‘What’s important around here’ and ‘how things are done around here’ heavily influence the products and service a business creates, and how it grows.
Without the right culture in place brand values, the thing that makes you attractive to customers, dilute.
"How do we intentionally create belonging as our business becomes bigger and more complex?"
Away days, trips to the pub, fun sports or craft activities are important components to create belonging, but these never create your culture. They just show you what your culture is..
The away day allows you to see whether all those everyday moments are adding up to the organisation you're trying to build.
Building culture happens every day, in the workplace. The real work appears when you intentionally design it for everyday moments at scale.
Happy connecting!
Sarah
P.s if you’d like to jump on an exploratory call to discuss your culture, book one with me here
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I’m Sarah, Founder of Loafspark.
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