Community Building Retreats for Remote Teams

Reconnect with purpose. Strengthen your team.

In a remote-first culture, genuine face-to-face time is invaluable.

I offer immersive retreats for remote teams, mission-driven organizations, and groups looking for deeper connection.

What Makes My Retreats Different?

A good retreat is about more than team-building activities – it’s about creating real, lasting bonds. When I facilitate a team retreat, each participant walks away feeling:

• Connected to their colleagues
• Aligned with your organization’s mission
• Comfortable being their true selves

Whether it’s an engineering team, advisory board, or senior leadership, every retreat must be built around the interests and personalities of the participants. But they are all rooted in my personal culture of connection: Authenticity, Curiosity, and Really Good Food.

I build connection organically through loosely-structured hangouts and creative problem-solving prompts. I use cooking – and hanging-out in general – to invite people to the edge of their comfort zones. And I always establish real relationships with participants before the retreat, so my sense of ease and goodwill becomes common currency when we all finally get together.

If you’re interested in a formulaic team-building exercise to check off some boxes, you will not be pleased.

This is not hope-based team-building through Go-Kart racing and drinks. The idea is to be intentional about how our interactions are structured and what we hope to achieve, while meeting each participant where they are.

That means there’s no pressure to tearfully recount your most difficult traumas either.

The point is to stack the deck, culturally and environmentally, to allow people to do what they’ve wanted to all along: Connect with each other in a way that’s most authentically themselves.

Will this increase performance and productivity?

Everybody wants a high-performing team, where the culture as a whole supports and accentuates the individual creativity of each member

“Get productive quick” schemes like inspirational speakers, swag, and gamification are the fad diets of the team-building world.

A long-term increase in team performance stems from self-confidence, connection (to each other) and alignment (with the mission).

I call these prereqs Three-Dimensional Trust.

Every retreat I design is designed with Three-Dimensional Trust in mind, for the long-term health, collaboration and performance of your team.

Fine, no Go-Karts. What are we going to do?

While each retreat is unique, many involve cooking a meal together, puzzles and scavenger hunts, hikes, and exercises of “self-reflection in community” like the Personal Collaboration Manual. These activities are built around any strategic or visionary goals leadership has, and allow the group to meet those goals authentically.

Good retreats don’t just fall from the sky.

They are built on relational groundwork. That means conflicts, frustrations, toxicity, and power dynamics must be addressed before the retreat. So I do that too.

To hold those conversations safely and skillfully, I teach advanced listening skills, conflict coaching, teamwork, mediation mindset, and other helpful skills.

How long does it take?

Most of my retreats are 3-4 days in total, including arrival and departure days. Of course, every retreat depends on the needs and activities of the clients.

A well-done retreat can pay dividends for years, with a palpable and dramatic shift for 12-18 months afterwards. Greater alignment. Fewer disputes. More grace. The benefit of the doubt. Esprit de corps. All of which lead inevitably towards productivity and that hallowed bottom line.

Distributed teams tend to benefit even more than centralized ones, for obvious reasons.

I measure success through participants’ sense of community and leadership’s sense of collaboration and productivity in the months following the event.

My goal is for every participant to experience more belonging, connection, trust, inspiration, and community. And for the organization as a whole to be aligned, efficient, and forgiving in the months after a retreat. 

Does your team need a retreat?

I love talking strategy and retreat design. If you’d like to chat about what your team needs and what’s possible, book a call or drop me a line.

If it’s helpful, I can even send you a couple of mock agendas before we talk, based on retreats I’ve done in the past.

Positive culture, safety, and trust don’t build themselves. I can help you make your next retreat a true investment in long-term collaboration.

For teams who need ongoing conflict coaching and mediation support, I also offer External/Fractional Ombud services and Risk Assessments for Co-Founders and Executive Teams.