what do you want to have happened six months afterward?
by kristen rampe
a well-planned retreat can have a real impact on your firm’s performance.
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a $2.4 million client of ours who holds annual management retreats (sole practitioner, coo, and key managers) wrote with this news when reflecting on their year-over-year improvements:
you would love our stats…
…in comparison to the prior fiscal year:
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- we shrunk our client count by 15%.
- our total collections grew by 12%.
- we worked and billed almost the exact same total # of hours.
- our average hourly rate billed (after adjustments) increased by $34, a 25% increase.
- our average billings per client increased by just over $1,000.
there are three overarching steps in executing a retreat that can give your firm results like these:
- plan well. what does good retreat planning look like? try these steps.
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- clarify what topics are most critical to be covered during the retreat
- define the specific outcomes you wish to see as a result of your time together
- allow issues that can be reviewed, decided, or moved forward without discussion of the whole group to progress without taking up time on your retreat agenda
- make sure you know how you make decisions and take action as a group
- allow your partner group to focus on the highest and best use of your time when meeting in person together
- stay on track. are there decisions to be made? during your retreat, stick to your thoughtful agenda.
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- be clear about what decision needs to be made on a given topic. is there a strategy you’re trying to form? a decision on how to compensate new partners? whether or not to acquire another firm this year?
- utilize the best facilitator you have available to stay on topic, on time with your agenda, and get to those key decision points.
- if it’s not possible to finalize a decision, because of a lack of information or new information, determine the next steps before you leave the retreat.
but not everything in a retreat is a decision. other critical partner-group functions include brainstorming ideas for a separate committee to work through after the retreat, and good old-fashioned team-building. don’t ignore the agenda items focused on partner relations – they are just as important, if not more, as getting to decisions.
- execute. who will be responsible for taking action after the retreat? this is the biggest challenge to post-retreat success. the stats cited by our client above didn’t happen without a concerted effort by the partners and managers to make it happen.
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- who will be ultimately accountable to hold other partners accountable for action items and goals arising from the retreat? typically, this is the managing partner, but could be a coo or another partner.
- which individual partners, committees or other personnel will do the heavy lifting on whatever directives or decisions were made?
- how frequently will the partner group be given updates on progress? a dashboard-style presentation of initiatives and progress can make this easy to review without taking up a lot of meeting time.
if you’re planning a retreat this year, what kind of stats do you want to see on the other side?