A few days ahead of our annual team retreat this year, I happened to have the opportunity to observe another company’s retreat. It was a familiar scene if you’ve been part of or around typical company-sponsored events: lots of matching t-shirts, speeches, workshops, and games reminiscent of those “field days” from elementary school. I laughed a bit – to myself, of course – and realized that our own team’s work retreat that would be happening a few days later may just as well be called a company “un-retreat”, as there would surely be no planned company attire, no relay race competitions, and I had no plans to stand up at a podium talking at my team about how great we are as an organization.

I don’t mean to “yuck anyone’s yum” – if you’re on a team or you run a team and your idea of fun is a relay race or dizzy bat competitions in matching company shirts, that’s great! However, at Tutor Corps & Pacific Preparatory, we do things a little differently. Indeed, if you witnessed our company retreat, you might think it seemed more like a group of friends getting together to simply enjoy quality time and connect more personally – less superficially. In setting out goals for our team’s annual retreat, we focused on one question: What can we do in person that we can’t do remotely, from our respective home offices across the country, over Zoom? Turns out, we’ve developed the skills to truly do almost anything over Zoom! The only thing we can’t do – simply enjoy each other’s physical presence. 

Specifically, during our annual team retreats, we spend a lot of time enjoying each other’s company and talking – without a “top down” agenda. We tend to get more personal in our conversations, since our work – supporting students – is the main focus of our dialogue the rest of the year, as we each collaborate in our various roles from our respective remote offices around the country. We also spend a lot of time eating family-style meals at long tables with good food. This year, one of our team members suggested we check out a local street fair after a meal, which turned out to be lots of good fun. Additionally, we hiked, did yoga, and spent plenty of time lounging around each other on pool floats, and with our feet in the hot tub. The closest we got to the “field day” style approach was with riveting games of Mafia and Celebrities after dinner, in the living room of our rental house. We walked away from the retreat with several new inside jokes, as groups of fun folks tend to do.

Overall, our team members get to look forward to and experience an annual work retreat that is more akin to what one might authentically choose to engage in, perhaps on a vacation with a large group of friends. While our “un-retreat” organizers sketched out the high level details – house rentals, car rentals, mealtime destinations, and a couple of key activities, everyone was invited into the planning process to ensure a more egalitarian feel in order to honor each team member’s authentic self and the strengths they bring to the team. Furthermore, for our hyper-organized, detail-oriented team, I know they didn’t need a rushed retreat packed to the gills with your average company retreat-type activities – they just needed a moment of rest, connection, and reflection.

The way we plan our annual retreats is just one way we’re rewriting the script on professional development and team building. We continue to do the critical thinking around cutting out unnecessary “busy work” to inspire a real, genuine appreciation for fellow team members and the work we do collectively. Likewise, as an organization, we seek to bring this approach to our services and the students we support – How can we help our students, and our incredible instructors, to cut through the “busy work” to inspire a real, genuine love of learning? How can we genuinely and thoughtfully collaborate with the families we serve?