Leadership development after the offsite
Australian organisations are fond of a two-day lodge with a view. People eat well. They write values on paper that does not survive the first board pack in February. The failure is not the food. The failure is that the offsite is treated as the work rather than as a pause from it.
Business consulting for leadership development, as we practise it from Bellbrae, returns to the ordinary Tuesday meeting. That is where vetoes live. That is where the hybrid tile goes quiet. If an offsite is useful, it is useful as a single rehearsal inside a longer sequence, not as a substitute for one.
When a client insists on a retreat, we take one observed meeting before we leave town and one after we return. The comparison is rarely flattering. It is also the only evidence the chair can use when someone claims the culture has already shifted.
If you want a mountain, go. Keep the invoice for the mountain separate from the invoice for the consulting. Mixing them produces a brochure and a hangover.