Inaugural Management Planning Retreat

This weekend marked the start of what will hopefully become an annual event at The Frontier Group. Friday afternoon saw the management team and their partners escape the hustle and bustle of the city, to the much more relaxed and stress free environment of Windmills Break in Yallingup.

Windmills Break is a luxury boutique hotel located in the Margaret River region of Western Australia. It took a lot of searching to find somewhere with respectable internet access, and this turned out to be it. Free WiFi all throughout the hotel, and surrounds (within sight). A perfect place for meetings. The surroundings also meant our partners could keep themselves occupied throughout the day, and after work we could all enjoy the facilities. The hotel was enjoyed by all, the facilities were excellent and the staff were very friendly. 

What really became apparent though, is how clear your headspace becomes when you remove yourself from familiar surroundings. There was no:

• checking the phone
• checking emails
• managing employees
• thinking about an upcoming appointment
• worrying about what work needed to be completed after the meeting

This meant that we could stick to our schedule (each agenda item was held to a time limit), and make progress. We managed to successfully tackle every item on our agenda, and come to firm and achievable decisions.

I always find that getting away for a while freshens me up for the weeks ahead. In this case it was working while away, but being able to achieve so much in a short space of time makes this a worthwhile event.

Looking forward to implementing numerous changes and improvements and seeing the company develop as we had towards MPR 2009.