We have scheduled our first two-day quarterly leadership team offsite, but my operations leader thinks leaving the office is a waste of time and is insisting on answering customer emails during our session. How do we set boundaries and run our quarterly offsites so they are viewed as critical strategic investments rather than operational interruptions?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Your quarterly offsite is not a retreat or a luxury, it is a critical working session to align the leadership team and set the direction for the next ninety days. If your operations leader is checking emails, they are demonstrating a lack of respect for the team and the process. To solve this, you must set strict rules of engagement before the offsite begins. First, establish a firm device policy. Laptops and phones must remain closed and put away, except during designated break times. Second, reiterate that if a leader cannot step away from the business for eight hours without everything collapsing, then you have a massive structural issue that needs to be solved on the Accountability Chart. Use the offsite to address this exact vulnerability. Explain that cracks at the leadership level appear as canyons to the rest of the organization, and if the leaders are not fully present, the alignment fails. Use the offsite to review your V/TO, set your quarterly Rocks, and solve your biggest issues using IDS. If a team member still refuses to engage, they are signaling that they do not value the health of the team. You must address this as a core values or GWC issue.