Before Booking an Away Day, Interview the People Who Will Not Be There

The people attending a leadership away day rarely see every part of the experience they are discussing. A cleaner may know which facilities repeatedly disappoint guests. A night receptionist may understand the consequences of information lost during the day. A temporary event steward may encounter confusing instructions that permanent colleagues have learned to work around.

These observations can improve the leadership conversation before it begins. Without them, the team risks spending an expensive day resolving the version of the business most visible from senior roles.

Preparation should therefore include people who will not be in the room. This is not an invitation to gather grievances without a response. It is a focused effort to understand the work, with clear expectations about how the information will be used.

Ask for episodes, not general verdicts

Questions about whether leadership communicates well can produce broad opinions. Asking someone to describe the last time information arrived too late produces a more useful account. What happened, who needed the information and how did the team recover?

Similarly, ask where colleagues find it difficult to deliver the customer promise, which decisions they repeatedly wait for and what additional work customers never see. These questions can expose dependencies that do not appear in departmental reports.

Treat an individual account as evidence to investigate, rather than proof of a universal problem. Compare observations across roles and shifts, and check relevant operational information. A vivid incident can be important without being representative.

Explain what confidentiality means

Employees should know who will see their comments and whether identifying details will be removed. In a small operation, the circumstances may make a person recognisable even when their name is absent. Do not offer assurances the process cannot keep.

Where sensitive concerns arise, use the organisation's appropriate reporting and people processes. An off-site preparation exercise should not become an improvised substitute for handling allegations or personal matters properly.

For ordinary operational feedback, summarise the issue without using the employee as a rhetorical weapon. Telling a director that a named colleague thinks they are ineffective invites defensiveness and can expose the contributor unnecessarily. Describing the missed handover and its consequence gives the team something concrete to examine.

Bring decisions back to the contributors

The leadership team should decide which findings require action, further investigation or an explanation of why no change is planned. Assign responsibility for responding. Otherwise the people who supplied the evidence may see the away day as another event conducted at a distance from their work.

Afterwards, explain the relevant decisions in practical terms. If a handover is changing, show what will be different and when. If a constraint remains, explain it honestly. Invite employees to report whether the revised arrangement works under actual conditions.

This creates continuity between listening and operating practice. It also improves the next leadership review, because the team can compare its assumptions with the experience of those implementing the decision.

The customer experience rehearsal in an event business offers a related lesson: the organisation needs to examine the whole experience, including work that receives less attention. The quality of an away day depends partly on whose reality reaches the room before the first discussion starts.