Organising team events without burning good money away

Most corporate team events are expensive exercises with little lasting impact. A disciplined approach to team development ensures your investment actually drives performance improvement.

Too many leadership teams waste their development budgets on luxury venues and gourmet meals, mistaking comfort for impact—while the real value lies in purposeful design and results-driven facilitation.

Developing leadership teams has been a central part of my career for the last 30 years. I'm grateful to have the privilege of working with leadership teams across the globe. As an extra benefit, I was able to experience numerous beautiful retreats. I was 'spoiled' early on and spent (work)time in resorts like the Ritz Carlton, exclusive mountain resorts and very high end big city hotels and venues. I'm truly grateful for the experience. And to a certain extent it adds to the overall experience of the participants.

Key takeaways

• Leaders, stop defaulting to luxury venues and focus your budget on inspiring, functional locations that foster creativity without unnecessary extravagance—your ROI will thank you.
• Before planning any team event, clarify the concrete objectives you want to achieve, whether it’s building trust, refining strategy, or strengthening relationships, so your investment delivers lasting business value.
• Don’t try to facilitate and participate at the same time—bring in an external facilitator to ensure the process is both effective and unbiased, especially when working with senior leadership teams.

When you bring your leaders together, it should primarily be about achieving tangible results that benefit the business long after the event has ended.

In this column, I share five strategies that you can apply immediately to ensure that your team development efforts yield a better return on your investment.

Reduce the emphasis on extravagant locations and expensive food. Significant savings can be realized by choosing a less extravagant venue and more modest dining options. I've seen numerous General Managers and CEO's going out of their way to choose the best of the best. Stop! Think again. Seek out inspiring locations that encourage creativity. It should be good, but doesn't have to be the absolute top. While I advocate for venues outside the office, they need not break the bank.

Clarify your objectives. Team development is an investment. Therefore, define your goals. What do you aim to achieve in the first place? Is it building relationships and internal networking and sharing? Building trust? Formulating a clear purpose and strategy? Refining leadership skills or work on strategy execution?

Orchestrate external facilitation. While it's possible to lead it yourself, bear in mind that effectively facilitating the process while actively participating can be exceedingly challenging. Even when it's a small group of leaders. Multi-tasking is an expensive illusion.

Understand that changing your business is an ongoing process. From the outset, incorporate plans for future steps and progress monitoring. Avoid a one-off event! If you try to change through one event, you're wasting hard earned money.

While I completely understand that team development via video is tempting, it's just not the same! I've done both. And I can tell you from personal real life experience that the difference is enourmous. If at all possible, bring your people physically together at least once or twice. Follow-up via video is fine and saves a lot of money!

Developing your team is pivotal for value creation. Your leaders are critical to deliver this value. Both 'the what' (the business objectives) and 'the how' (how we achieve them) need to be addressed.

Oftentimes, developing your leaders as a team is more effective. Think twice and get a much higher return from your investment.

Let us know what your experiences are?

The best team events don’t impress with opulence; they drive lasting business outcomes by focusing every resource on clarity, creativity, and connection—where every euro spent delivers measurable value long after the last handshake.

Over to you.