I had a long chat last week with two American friends of mine, Phil Dyer and Lisa Kirschenbauer. Phil and Lisa are life and financial planners like me, but they have also extended their programme into business consultancy and, like me, work on the interface between life and business which is so important to the entrepreneur. Phil and Lisa have set up an organisation called Total Business Transformation. This involves at its core a week long retreat in Tuscany with satellite activities both before and after the main event. I asked Phil and Lisa why entrepreneurs should join them on this event. After all, I said, it’s a long week out just after you’ve got back from the family holiday. It is also a significant investment of money, especially for those who are flying across to Italy from the United States. But Phil and Lisa gave me three extremely good reasons why it is important to get away.
The first is the concept of stepping back, an unplugging from the day-to-day grind of the business. For many of us, even with the best of intentions, we are still working as much in the business as on the business and taking time out gives us the chance to clear our brains and start to think for a while much more strategically about the direction of our businesses. Phil in particular was adamant that this shouldn’t be just a one, a two or even a three day event, but cited past experience (with which I concur) that it takes two to three days to fully release your mind from the day to day grind of the business; often it is in the remaining three to four days of the week that all the really good thinking is done.
The second reason that Phil and Lisa gave for attending a strategic business retreat was the idea that you cannot do it on your own, or if you can do it on your own you’re probably pretty exceptional. Phil and Lisa are inviting up to ten entrepreneurs to join them for a week in Italy and it is as much about the conversations between the delegates as between Phil and Lisa and the delegates that will give rise to the ideas and energies needed to take the business to the next step. As in life planning, you can’t really do it on your own, you need to have some sort of mentor to help you through and in business the same applies. The idea of having a mentor or a companion is all important and this tallies closely with the third reason that Phil and Lisa gave for attending a strategic business retreat, that of the group mastermind, a concept initially advocated by Napoleon Hill in his classic book, “Think and Grow Rich”. Out of the ten delegates on the retreat Phil and Lisa hope to form a mastermind set which will continue to grow and develop well after the week in Italy. Whether it grows through physical meetings, or through virtual communication over the internet doesn’t really matter, but the point is that the retreat itself will be the foundation for a core group of entrepreneurs from around the globe who know each other extremely well and will become the sounding board and ideas generator that will deliver the growth of ten companies going forward.
From my own experience I know well that these retreats whether they be life retreats or business retreats can be extremely inspirational and energising as well as leading to firm and long lasting friendships and support mechanisms that may go on for the remainder of your life.
So, as we come into the holiday season, we should go off with family and friends and do things other than work, but we should also be considering how we are going to take a break from everything and concentrate solely on the business and its strategic development for a week or so.
As always, the key word is transformation. It’s time to get away from the day to day transactions of the business and time to start transforming it into something limited only by your imagination. Jeremy Deedes
