A Partner Retreat Recap

You have spent two days with your fellow partners focusing on the future of the firm. You have made the investment in a qualified facilitator. Before the group departs, use that facilitator to help you do some wrap-up steps. As Yogi Berra is famous for saying, "If you don't know where you are going, you are certain to end up somewhere else."

Decisions were made, action items were assigned. Be sure to go over these points during the retreat recap so that everyone is on the same page and clear about the expectations. Everyone leaves the retreat with an understanding of the action steps and is clear about who "owns" each step.

As often occurs with partner retreats, when partners return to the office, managers and staff members ask what happened at the retreat. Everyone wants to know what decisions were made. To effectively handle the onslaught of questions, be sure everyone leaves the meeting with "talking points."

List the key points on a flip-chart. Some items are confidential and should not be shared but most items are not. Once everyone is in agreement, appoint a person to capture the points digitally and send them to the attendees. Once back at the office (immediately) the MP should send out an email including the key points so that everyone gets the message at the same time, in the same manner.

I always urge managing partners to have a "state of the firm" meeting as soon as possible after the retreat so that the key points and any new strategic direction for the firm can be shared with all.

Finally, ask the attendees what they liked about the meeting and what they did not like. Do this on-site, while things are fresh in your minds. What bugged you? What did you really like? What could we do better next time? Use the KSS method – for our retreat, what should we Keep doing, what should we Stop doing and what should we Start doing?

Retreats are like other routine office happenings (such as performance evaluations). If you don't refresh them and do things differently, everyone soon gets bored with the entire experience.

Gary Adamson is the CEO of Adamson Advisory, a CPA practice management consulting firm.