How To (Gracefully) Change The Engine While Flying: Learnings From A Hyper-Growth Team Offsite

A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of facilitating a 4-day offsite for the brilliant PMM team at Manychat . My goal as a coach and facilitator was to create a fun and effective experience, helping this remote team connect personally while thriving in their evolving roles during the company's rapid growth.

At first, I felt a bit intimidated by this challenge, unsure how to best serve the team's needs. Fortunately, I got to design the entire program alongside the director of Product Marketing who championed the event. Through our collaboration, she helped me gain a deeper understanding of the team's current position, needs, and future direction.

Gradually, the program evolved into an exciting experiment blending diverse approaches. We built it on a foundation of mindfulness—giving participants time and space to pause, reflect, understand themselves and their environment. This approach allowed them to practice transforming reactive behaviours into thoughtful responses while exploring the power of personal choice. We integrated design thinking methods, such as using system mapping to deeply understand daily challenges, and storyboarding to deepen customer empathy. To create a truly holistic experience, we also incorporated stretching exercises throughout the program, engaging both mind and body.

Over the four days, we progressively expanded our focus: from developing an understand of the company direction, to understanding ourselves, to understanding each other, to reframing reaction into response, to pairing expertise within and outside the team, to defining team values and vision. Finally, we grounded everything in actionable projects, each supported by dedicated champions.

Here are some of the key learnings I took away:

?? The power of pausing: At work, there's often a bias toward constant action over thoughtful pauses. However, action is truly effective only when we give ourselves and our organizations time to align clearly on purpose, direction, and approach.

?? Face-to-face magic: In distributed workplaces, face-to-face connections are invaluable. Even as an outsider, I formed strong connections with the team in just days. This shows how meaningful relationships blossom when colleagues meet in person regularly—and it's incredibly fun!

?? Inclusive design matters: I observed that neurodivergent participants required different approaches to mindfulness meditations. This was an incredible opportunity to adapt and diversify the approaches I employed, making mindfulness practices more accessible for everyone.

?? The power of story: While facts and numbers dominate the workplace, storytelling is equally essential. It helps us explore our inner worlds, understand each other better, empathize with customers, and bring a sense of humanness to our work relationships.

?? Leadership makes it happen: This meaningful event of pausing, reflecting, bonding, and learning was only made possible through genuine support from company and team leadership.

?? Make things actionable: To ensure lasting impact beyond the offsite, we dedicated time to creating specific action items and assigning champions—this approach helps embed our learnings into the team's daily practices.

?Bonus: Seek Discomfort 's Spark was a huge hit during lunch time! The questions sparked (??) meaningful conversations and helped us understand one another not just as colleagues, but as humans with unique stories ??

What I’d do differently next time:

?Design to optimise attention span: We accomplished a lot in a short time, but I noticed groups need significant energy to stay focused. It's challenging to put regular work on hold while attending an offsite. Next time, I'd propose shorter programs to enhance focus and allocate dedicated time for daily tasks.

??Understand individual needs early in the process: For future programs, I'd like to identify varying needs earlier and incorporate more flexibility into the initial program design.

Thank you, Stephanie Perozo , for your trust and collaboration throughout this journey! And to the wonderful PMM team—thank you for your friendship, openness, honesty, and inclusive spirit ??

As we wrap up 2024, it's the perfect time to pause, reflect, and set intentions for what's ahead. Here's to creating more magic with awareness, clarity, intentionality, and kindness! ???

Photos by: Diana Andoni