Latest / New Manager Conversations with Fexingo: First 90 Days, Managing Former Peers, and Leadership Basics / How New Managers Can Run Their First Team Offsite
Transcript
- Lucas: You get promoted to manager. You survive the first ninety days. You start to feel like maybe you know what you're doing. And then someone — your boss, HR, the team — says: 'We should do an offsite.' Luna: And suddenly the confidence you built up over three months evaporates. Lucas: Exactly. Because running a team offsite as a new manager is a very specific kind of pressure. You're responsible not just for the logistics — though, yes, that — but for the tone, the psychological safety, the actual value of eight people's time. Luna: And for a lot of new managers, this is the first time they're designing a whole day of work. Not just a meeting, not a workshop — a full day. Lucas: So today I want to walk through a real case. I talked to a new manager — let's call her Priya — at a mid-sized B2B SaaS company. She has eight direct reports, hybrid team — four in the office, four remote. She's six months in. Her boss says, 'Take them offsite for a day, build some cohesion.' Luna: And what did she do first? Lucas: She panicked. Then she called me. We talked it through. And I want to share the playbook we landed on, because it worked. The offsite got a Net Promoter Score of plus 72 from the team — which is, you know, decent for a work event. Luna: That's actually a measurable outcome. So tell me the playbook. Lucas: Step one is the hardest: define the purpose in one sentence. Not 'build team cohesion' — that's vague. Priya's was: 'Align on our team's priorities for Q3 and agree how we'll work together across locations.' That's specific. That's the north star. Luna: So before you even book a room, you need to know what success looks like. If you can't write it down in a single sentence, you shouldn't run the offsite. Lucas: Completely agree. Step two: gather input from the team, but don't over-engineer it. Priya sent a short survey — three questions — 'What's working well?', 'What's not working?', and 'What's one thing you want to get out of our offsite?'. Luna: She got themes, not a wishlist. That's smart. Lucas: Exactly. She got five themes. She used those to build the agenda. And here's the key: she shared the survey results with the team before the offsite. So everyone walked in knowing what the collective concerns were. No surprises. Luna: That builds trust and it also reduces anxiety. People aren't wondering 'What are we going to talk about?' Lucas: Right. Step three: the agenda structure. Priya's offsite was one day, nine to five. We split it into three parts. Morning: reflection and context. After lunch: decisions and commitments. Late afternoon: social and close. Luna: No death by slides. Lucas: Zero slides. The morning session was a facilitated conversation around the survey themes. Priya started with a simple exercise: each person wrote down their personal priorities for Q3 on a sticky note, then shared with the group. That surfaced overlaps and misalignments immediately. Luna: And it's low stakes. Everyone can write a sticky note. Lucas: Low stakes, high signal. After that, they did a 'team charter' exercise — basically agreeing on norms. Things like: 'How do we handle disagreements?', 'What's our response time on Slack?', 'When do we turn cameras on?'. Luna: That's especially important for a hybrid team. The remote people often feel like second-class citizens. Lucas: Exactly. And the charter gave them a way to codify equity. For example, they agreed that all team meetings would have a remote-first setup — everyone on their own laptop even if they're in the office. That was a big win. Luna: So the morning was about alignment. What about the afternoon? Lucas: Afternoon was about decisions. They did a 'stop/start/continue' exercise — again, each person writes on sticky notes, group clusters them. Then Priya facilitated a vote on the top three actions the team would commit to for Q3. Luna: So the team is deciding, not just the manager. That's the trust-building part. Lucas: That's the whole point. Priya had the final say, but she didn't override any of the top three. The team chose: reduce meeting time by twenty percent, implement a weekly async check-in for remote folks, and create a shared Q3 project tracker. Luna: Concrete, measurable, team-owned. Lucas: And then the last hour was purely social. No agenda. They went to a park across the street, played a silly game, had drinks. Remote people joined via video on a tablet — which felt weird but they appreciated being included. Luna: I think that's a huge trap for new managers — they try to pack the offsite with non-stop content. Every minute must be productive. But the real value of an offsite is often the hallway conversations. Lucas: Totally. Priya's original agenda had a full afternoon of workshops. We cut it to three hours of structured work and one hour of pure hang. The feedback after was that people wished they had more unstructured time. Luna: So the lesson is: schedule less than you think you need. Leave white space. Lucas: And the last step is the most overlooked: follow-through. Priya sent a one-page recap within forty-eight hours. It listed the three commitments, the team charter, and who owned each action. She also scheduled a thirty-minute check-in two weeks later to review progress. Luna: That's what turns a nice day into lasting change. Without follow-through, it's just a fun day. Lucas: Exactly. And let me tell you, Priya's boss was impressed. The team's Q3 execution improved measurably. They hit their milestones a week early. And the remote team members reported feeling more connected. Luna: That's the dream outcome for a new manager. So let me ask you — what's the one thing a new manager should absolutely not do when planning their first offsite? Lucas: Don't try to do it alone. Priya almost made that mistake. She thought, 'I'm the manager, I need to have all the answers.' But an offsite is a collective experience. If you design it in a vacuum, you'll miss the real issues. Ask your boss, ask a peer, ask the team itself. Luna: And if they've been listening to this podcast, they might even ask you. Lucas: Yeah, exactly. And you know, if you're a new manager and this show has helped you think through a career move or a challenge like this one, we want to keep it ad-free and accessible. That's only possible because of listener support. So if you find value in episodes like this, you can buy us a coffee — literally — at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. No pressure, just if it's helpful. Luna: Totally. It's a small way to keep the conversation going. And now back to offsites — one more thing I want to ask: what about budget? A lot of new managers are worried about the cost. Lucas: Great question. Priya's offsite cost about two thousand dollars for the room, lunch, and afternoon drinks. That's not nothing. But she framed it as an investment in team effectiveness, which her boss approved. If you're on a tight budget, you can do it in a conference room with potluck lunch. The key is the structure, not the venue. Luna: So don't let budget stop you. Even a half-day in the office with a good agenda can work wonders. Lucas: Exactly. And if you're remote-only, you can run a virtual offsite. It's harder, but doable. We'll cover that in a future episode. For now, the takeaway: define your purpose, gather input, build a rhythm of reflection and decisions, leave white space, and follow through. Luna: And if you're Priya, you now have a team that trusts you more and executes better. That's a win. Lucas: That's the goal. Next time, we'll talk about how to handle the first time you have to deliver tough feedback to the whole team. That's a whole different kind of pressure.