Small Business Best Practices: What are your 3 tips for a successful annual ‘kickoff’ meeting?

Michael, here are three that are pretty obvious:

1. Everyone must be made aware of the goals for the organization and those goals must be achievable.
2. Everyone must see how their functional area or them specifically will contribute to those goals.
3. Any inefficiency in the organization that will be a hindrance to reaching goals must be addressed in the meeting so there is no "elephant in the room".

Good luck!

1. Give everyone 4 - 6 questions to answer before they come to the event. Tell them to work alone, not to worry about coming up with earth shattering answers and to bring the answers to the meeting. Build a session or sessions around the questions and the attendees will find it easier to participate because they've already had time to think things through.
2. Go off-site, get out of the office even if it's only to the local library.
3. Balance the time between focused work sessions and active, fun activities.

1. Spend time getting to know each other -- whether a new or an existing group. In either case, it's a new venture even for an existing group.

2. Spend time envisioning and discussing the outcome -- what does success look like? how will we know?

3. Spend time outlining the approach at a high level -- more principles, values, strategies than detailed time lines.

4. (Oops, couldn't help myself!) Spend the last time on immediate next steps -- what happens next, who is going to do it, what actions should others do, when do we meet again...

1. Inclusive – People who will be leading the organization. This will include all of senior and line management but should not be limited to this. Front line people who are key leaders formally or informally should participate. Without front line the initiatives are doomed form the start. Make sure you have a communications plan developed by the end of the meeting so you have aplan to include the folks who were not present – don’t let it die with a great plan and good meeting

2. Make it an event that holds both importance and fun- Balance the business side with time for people to connect because after the meeting they will have to work together to make things happen. This is very important if you have multiple facilities and people meeting face to face is a rare event

3. Empower people to make a difference – This should not be a top down moment where all just fall in line. The CEO MUST have the vision and commitment but how to reach the goals must have input from everyone in the team. Allow for disagreements and debate BUT know when to step in and bring it to a close and make sure you have consensus

4. Leave with energy and commitment – all need to sign up to execute the plan. Make the closing fun and full of energy so that people can’t wait to get back to the office and forge ahead

Never learned to count very well!!!

After you get the hell out of the office...a team at a kickoff needs three things:
1) A crystal clear vision of where they're going, and the vales to live by along the way
2) What are the few most important things to do to get there?
3) Build trust and relationships in the team to enable it to happen.

1) *** CRYSTAL CLEAR VISION AND VALUES ***
A team needs a clear vision and a set of committed values if they are to succeed - and especially if they're to succeed and enjoy the process of building the company! There's nothing more important to keeping everyone aligned, because when the vision and values are in place and people BUY IN to them (usually because they as a team helped co-create them), it creates an unconscious 'map' in the team around how to get to success.

- Example of a crystal clear vision: http://www.zingtrain.com/2010/01/zingermans-2020-vision/

2) *** FEW MOST IMPORTANT GOALS ***
"Goal clutter" makes it really easy to get distracted from what is truly important. Trying to do too many things scatters energy and means nothing gets done in ways that make a lasting impact. So early in the year, establish:

a) "If we can only accomplish 5 things this year as a company, what would they be?"
b) Then translate these goals to each individual: "If I can accomplish only 5 things this year to make the "Company's Big 5" happen, what would they be?

3) *** HAVE FUN BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS ***
Have some damn fun!! You need fun because if the team doesn't work well together or trust each other, it's going to be a painful ride, and also if you're not having fun in life or work, what's the point?

There are a couple of simple ways to do this:
a) In the working session times, break people into small teams of 2-4 people to come up with ideas and solutions.
b) Include some fun, active or team-building activities outside the working sessions. This can be as simple as a dinner, a hike, or outdoor or indoor games.

One of the silliest and most-fun things I ever did was string some crepe paper ribbon across a room, blow up a few balloons, and have people play "balloon volleyball"! Also, Improv warm-up games are EXCELLENT at getting the energy going and having some fun.

You can get as creative as you like, as with this "Treasure Map Hike"
http://pebblestorm.com/2009/11/09/reinventing-work-treasure-map-hike