Planning season 2027 › Off-site day
What the grapevine knows before it shows up in the reporting.
A facilitated transformation off-site day for the board and the leadership team. We put the informal patterns that slow change down on the table – and by the evening there are decisions with names and dates.
The starting point
Green lights, sluggish reality
The programme is set up, the roles have been reassigned, the status report shows green. And yet the change is not arriving in day-to-day business. Decisions are postponed, old ways of working carry on in parallel, and the story told in the kitchen is a different one from the story told in the steering committee.
That second story is not background noise. It is the most accurate early-warning system your organisation has. It shows where the new structure leaves gaps that staff quietly fill themselves – and where change is being blocked long before any KPI shows it.
The transformation off-site day starts exactly there: not with the question of whether the strategy is right, but with the question of why it peters out in day-to-day business.
Four signals
How to recognise informal patterns
No organisation runs by the organisation chart alone. The question is not whether informal routes exist, but which of them rescue performance and which hold the change back.
Workarounds that fill gaps
Where staff bypass a process, they are usually closing a gap the organisation itself cannot see. Ban the workaround without closing the gap, and you lose performance.
Roles that appear in no organisation chart
The colleague everyone calls, even though she is officially not responsible. Roles like this keep operations running – and disappear as soon as the new structure makes no provision for them.
Agreements on a handshake
What two departments have settled verbally is written down in no policy. When responsibilities change, these agreements break off, and nobody notices in time.
Reports that say all is quiet
When every status report says all is quiet while friction can be felt throughout the organisation, the reporting is measuring the wrong thing. Progress shows in impact, not in milestones ticked off.
The process
How the day is structured
Beforehand
Confidential conversations
Two to three conversations of around 45 minutes each, with people from different levels. What is said there remains anonymous. Together they form the picture we take into the day.
Morning
Making patterns visible
Which informal routes are currently rescuing performance, and which are blocking the change? The group sorts them – without assigning blame, using examples from its own organisation.
Afternoon
Redrawing responsibility
For each blocking pattern, we clarify who is responsible, where issues are escalated and what may be said officially from now on that until now was only said in the corridor.
Evening
Recording decisions
Actions with names and dates – and the question of how you will notice in three months that it is working. Not from status reports, but from less friction.
Straight talk
When you do not need this day
An off-site day costs money and the time of your best people. In three situations, you are better off saving both.
You are looking for someone to blame
Informal patterns arise because the organisation leaves gaps, not because individuals are being obstructive. Anyone who wants names for a failure at the end of the day will not get any from me.
The answer has already been decided
If the outcome has been decided in advance, the grapevine gets louder afterwards, not quieter. In that case a well-written announcement is more honest than a facilitated day.
Nobody from the leadership is taking part
Patterns that concern leadership cannot be resolved without leadership. Without a board member or the responsible head of division in the room, the day remains a venting session.
When bringing in someone from outside pays off at all:
The fee
What the off-site day costs
The rates for my off-sites apply, with no surcharge for the topic.
First day
€6,900
basic flat fee · up to 8 participants
Included are the confidential preliminary conversations, concept and structure of the day, facilitation, the record of decisions and travel time within Austria, Germany and Switzerland.
Each following day
€3,500
immediately afterwards
Useful when several departments are affected or the patterns run deeper than one day can resolve.
Per participant above eight
€200
per day of the event
From seventeen participants, a second facilitator is added; I will provide a separate offer for this.
Prices for businesses, net plus VAT. Venue, equipment and catering are booked and paid by you directly; travel and accommodation at cost. Fixed price for engagements commissioned by 31 January 2027; prices as of October 2026. Errors and omissions excepted; subject to change. Only the written proposal is binding.
If the off-site day is followed by a mandate within three months, I credit the first day in full. All fees, credits and terms at a glance →
Worked examples and the breakdown behind them:
The result
What is in place by the evening
Within two working days, you receive a record of decisions. It sets out which patterns we found, which may stay because they rescue performance, and which will be removed – each with a name, a date and a review point after three months.
Whatever was not decided on the day is in it too, with a note of who will decide it and by when. Without this part, an off-site day looks successful and usually is not.
What such a day looks like when the conflict has already broken out into the open:
Thirty minutes to find out whether the day is worth it
In the first conversation, you describe the situation. I tell you whether an off-site day is the right answer – or whether something else fits better. Free of charge and with no obligation.