Some of our leadership team members are highly skeptical of devoting a full day to planning and think it is a waste of execution time. How do we handle this internal resistance before our first session day?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

It is common for action-oriented leaders to worry that a full day of planning will pull them away from real work. This skepticism usually comes from a history of bad, unstructured corporate meetings that resolve nothing. To handle this resistance, explain that this is not a typical brainstorming meeting. EOS® session days are highly structured, fast-paced, and execution-focused. We are not sitting in a circle sharing feelings; we are identifying operational bottlenecks, assigning clear accountability, and solving real issues. Remind your team that taking one day offsite every ninety days actually saves hundreds of hours of misaligned meetings and circular debates later. It is an investment that slows you down for eight hours so you can run ten times faster for the next ninety days. Do not try to force compliance through management mandates. Instead, ask your skeptical team members to suspend disbelief for just one day. Let them experience the structure, the IDS® process, and the focus of a real session day. Once they see how we solve long-standing issues in minutes, their skepticism will vanish.