The biggest mistake you can make planning an offsite

The biggest mistake when planning team offsites is focusing on the “What” vs. the “Why”.

Of course you know that what you are planning is a sales kickoff, QBR, or incentive trip, but why are you actually investing in this retreat? 

Priya Parker discusses this in her book “The Art of Gathering”, reminding us that a category is not a purpose.

The category of your offsite may be “Sales Kickoff”, but the purpose may be to train the team on an exciting product roadmap, or to fix a disconnect across Account Executives and Sales Engineers.

The content and agendas we recommend for these two scenarios are wildly different, both built for different outcomes.

These types of events are not one size fits all. There is not a standard playbook.

While we help you plan a “what” with the “how” and the “where” at Zinnia, we know that setting an intentional “WHY” is the most important way we can ensure an impactful offsite for our clients.

Do you agree that WHY is more important than WHAT? Have you made this mistake before? What is your team's WHY?