So I’ve gone to a flurry of offsites this month and they’re a pretty interesting beast. The assumption is that you can’t get this group of people all in the same place to talk about something without actually removing them from the office and moving them to a hotel for a few days. The first day always ends with a dinner where many or most people get fairly drunk.
Since we’re a global company, all of the offsites include people who have flown from other countries.
I sat on a ‘panel’ at one of these offsites and gave a presentation at another. Both made me fairly nervous because they were for an audience that included a lot of upper management types but in the end they went very well. It’s a fairly surreal environment and it makes me realize how rare it is to spend an entire day in the company of the same set of people non-stop.
But I finally understand where a lot of the “big decisions” companies make come from. At least the ones that are made at these kinds of offsites are made by groups of people who have 45 minutes to talk about them in breakout sessions and then present them back to the larger group for another 30 minutes of discussion. There’s no ponderous research and review of statistics and cost-benefit analysis. Just a bunch of smart people shooting largely from the hip based on their own experience and perceptions and going with whatever consensus they can come up with.
Reminds me of a gripe my wife has when her employees or colleagues start talking about “them” and “they” and how “they” must have designed xyz policy with whatever nefarious hidden motives to make their life more difficult. In reality I think the truth is much more pedestrian; most business decisions are made with a genuine set of best intentions and any unintended consequences for the rest of the employees at the company are from a simple lack of time or research.