Why your "team-building" offsite actually made things worse
You spent five figures on it.
A full-day offsite with a facilitator.
Trust falls.
And catered lunch.
All designed to "improve team cohesion."
Everyone smiled for the group photo.
And when they came back to the office on Monday, the energy was even worse than before.
The tension was thicker.
Why?
It's the Boomerang Effect.
A team's dynamics are almost always a reflection of its leader.
If the leader is …
burned out
avoids difficult conversations
or is unclear in their direction
… a one-day event feels like a hollow, corporate exercise.
It highlights the massive gap between the fun day and their daily reality.
The boomerang comes back because the trust wasn't there to begin with.
And the cost of a backfired offsite is far greater than just the money spent on the event.
It actively deepens cynicism and disengagement across the team.
Your people see the disconnect between the forced fun and their dysfunctional daily reality.
Causing them to lose trust in leadership's judgment.
This turns into a wasted day.
An investment that yields a negative return.
Accelerating the departure of good employees who are fed up with performative culture.
And a single offsite can't fix it.
The real work doesn't start with the team.
It starts with the leader.
When you provide confidential coaching for the leader to get:
clear
confident
and communicative first
Then a team offsite becomes a powerful accelerant.
Not a painful reminder of what's broken.
Stop wasting money on team-building that doesn't stick.
Let's talk about supporting your leaders first.
