Leadership away day design, delivered in 48 hours
A leadership away day works or fails on its design: the order of the sessions, how much time the difficult conversation actually gets, and what happens when the room goes quiet or one person dominates. We design the whole day and you lead it, so the relationship with your team stays yours rather than passing to an external facilitator. Fixed prices start at $995 (about £790) and the design arrives within 48 hours of a twenty-minute intake call.
From $995, about £790. Delivered 48 hours after the intake call. One revision included.
The situation
The away day that produces a good feeling and nothing else
Away days have a specific failure mode: everyone enjoys the day, the conversation is genuinely better than usual, and six weeks later nothing has changed. The day generated warmth rather than commitments, and warmth does not survive contact with the following Monday.
This happens because the design was a list of topics rather than a sequence. Topics fill the time available. A sequence moves a group from where they are to somewhere specific, and it protects time for the part where they have to actually agree on something.
The other pattern is the difficult conversation that everyone knows is coming and nobody schedules. It surfaces at 3:40pm, there is not enough time to work through it properly, and it gets closed down rather than resolved. It then reappears, worse, at the next away day.
What we design against
Designing for a British room
Politeness is a design constraint, not a courtesy. In a conflict-avoidant culture, disagreement does not appear in the room. It goes offline and comes back as quiet non-execution, which is far harder to address because nothing was ever said out loud.
The design compensates structurally. Written-first formats before open discussion, so the objection exists on paper before anyone has to say it. Anonymous input where the hierarchy is steep. Small groups formed deliberately rather than by who is sitting near whom.
Time is protected for the thing people are avoiding. If the away day has one genuinely uncomfortable subject, it gets its own block early enough in the day that the group has energy for it, rather than a corner of the last session.
The day ends with named commitments rather than a shared feeling. Who is doing what, by when, and what happens if it does not happen.
Why not book a facilitator
You keep the room
Booking an external facilitator for your own leadership team sends a message before anyone speaks: this was too hard for the person who leads it.
The skill you are actually buying is design. What order things go in, where the difficult conversation sits, what to say when it stalls, and how to close on something real. That work is done before the day starts.
You run the day. Your team sees you run a session that works, and the relationship and the credit stay with you.
Pricing
Published, fixed, and the same for everyone
You should be able to decide without a sales call.
Single Objective
One session, one decision.
$995
Fixed. One revision included.
For the meeting that has to produce one clear outcome. A single objective, a room that has to agree, and no time to recover if the first activity does not land.
- Diagnostic call and written brief of what the session must achieve
- Minute-by-minute agenda with timings and transitions
- Facilitator scripts, worded for your room
- Contingency branches for the moments most likely to go wrong
- One-page control sheet to hold while you run it
- Outcomes review after the session
Designed for a session of up to two hours.
Workshop Day
A full working day, designed end to end.
$1,495
Fixed. One revision included.
For the offsite or away day where several things have to happen in sequence, and where losing the room after lunch costs you the afternoon.
- Everything in Single Objective
- Full-day arc with energy management across the whole session
- Break and transition design, including the post-lunch recovery
- Group formation guidance for every activity
- Materials and room setup checklist
- Contingency branches for each block, named to your people
Designed for a half day or full day, including breaks and energy management.
High-Stakes
When the session carries real consequence.
From $2,995
Quoted after a fit-check call.
For the decision that will be relitigated if it goes badly. Restructures, portfolio cuts, merger integration, and any room where the person leading it has a stake in the outcome.
- Everything in Workshop Day
- Stakeholder mapping across official, individual, and unspoken objectives
- Neutrality design when the person leading has a stake in the outcome
- Escalation branches for conflict, dominance, and withdrawal
- Multi-day arc design where the work spans sessions
- Rehearsal call included
Multi-day programs, board-level sessions, and rooms with known conflict.
Questions