Not just an meeting; it's an adventure - retreats for businesses

Nation's Business, August, 1996 by Cynthia Scanlon

Since 1970, the law firm of Snell & Wilmer has held retreats for its employees to discuss topics such as corporate law or alternative dispure resolution. The retreats, like those of many other companies, usually involve an afternoon of intensive seminars and meetings. They're educational, to be sure, but also pretty sedentary.

Last summer, however, the firm decided to try a new twist. It gathered a group of about 50 lawyers from its offices in Salt Lake City, Phoenix, and Irene, Calif., for a wilderness retreat outside Tucson, Ariz. The lawyers spent the afternoon doing a series of team-building exercises; in one, for example, eight people on a single pair of long skis had to walk through a slalom course.

"Everyone had to pick up their right leg at the same time and then their left leg," says James Condo, coordinator for Snell & Wilmer's commercial-litigation group. "We learned to rely on each other and work together to bring our individual talents to the team to solve a problem."

The concept of team building through this kind of retreat--which may include adventure games, water rafting, rock climbing, unconventional brainstorming sessions, and countless other possibilities--has been around for years, but it is gaining in popularity among small firms such as Snell & Wilmer, according to companies that organize such retreats. They say that small-business owners and managers are recognizing that giving employees a hands-on experience can help build cohesiveness within the company.

"Retreats can create a shared history for people," says Matt Weinstein, founder of Playfair, Inc., a Berkeley, Calif., company that specializes in team-building events for retreats and meetings. "When employees go back to work, they can relate to each other better because they have had interactive experiences with one another."

Group Planning Specialists Inc., a Seattle-based company that plans retreats and meetings, promotes the importance of getting employees together away from the office, especially in unusual surroundings. It has helped numerous companies build teams through events such as scavenger hunts, sales meetings at museums or mansions, and even a cocktail party at the 19th Green bar at Pebble Beach Golf Club, in California.

"Whether you have 20,000 employees or two employees; interacting is so different outside an office atmosphere," says Teiry Furman, president of Group Planning.

Charge Of The Retreats

Companies are putting more meetings and retreats together than ever before. According to Meeting Professionals International, a Dallas-based trade association of meeting planners, 1996 will be the strongest year yet in the meeting and convention industry, with 73 percent of companies expected to hold more meetings this year than last. Twenty-eight percent of associations are expected to do the same.

Along with adventure weekends or days, computerized multimedia, videoconferencing, and special-effects techniques are expected to be used more widely to give meeting getaways a new and exciting element, according to Meeting Professionals International.

The costs of retreats can vary widely, but Furman estimates the average cost for a one-day retreat at $100 per employee. That usually includes one meal, retreat activities, and local transportation.

An overnight retreat can run about $200 per employee, Furman says; the price can skyrocket if a company decides to splurge.

The Net Results

At Snell & Wilmer's retreat--which was arranged by Wilderness Adventures, of Phoenix--the lawyers' favorite exercise involved a net with various sizes of holes in it. "We had to pass each lawyer through the net, and we couldn't use the same hole [more than once]," says John Bouma, the firm's chairman. "So we had to figure out who would fit through what hole, who could lift whom, all the while remembering not to leave the biggest until last because there would be no one left to help him through."

Adds Condo, "It was an opportunity to put the concepts that we've been working on here at our firm into practice."

A retreat need not be off-site to be successful, however. Strategic Events International, a retreat-planning company in Boston, has used a popular exercise, developed by Playfair, in which a client company's employees are kept on-site and given arts-and-crafts materials--such as balloons, cardboard, felt-tip markers, glue, and Silly Putty--to carry cut an unusual assignment.

"People come together to design sculptures of their company's vision," says Ronli Berlinger, manager of client serices for Strategic Events International. "The sculptures demonstrate what employees think the company's vision is or where it should be going." Once finished, the sculptures are put on display in a "gallery" at the company to help encourage discussion about the firm among employees.

Cooperation And Survival

Some companies like to challenge their employees by creating retreats that nut them in unusual situations. Last year, Kevin Reilly, vice president of Richardson Electronics, a 600-employee electronic-components and semiconducter firm in LaFox, Ill., took the 21 technical professionals in his division on an outdoor retreat that simulated a plane crash.