Lessons from our 2023 Retreat

We’re recently back from another amazingly refreshing and productive annual retreat. At Mana, we place high value on both personal reflection and opportunities for deep connection as a company. Our day to day operations are intensely client-focused, so it’s critical that we carve out time each year to closely examine our business at large, including our long term goals, operations, and company values. This year, we jetted off to Portugal, where we spent time in both Lisbon and Sagres. This week’s blog is a little recap of some of the things we accomplished and lessons learned doing so.

Before the retreat

We wrote about this last year as well, but so much of the success of a Mana retreat is planned and guaranteed in the weeks before we travel. This year, we did some in-person planning in LA a couple weeks prior to Portugal, to ensure that we had a concrete list of topics and goals. This year’s focus was on some exciting company growth (stay tuned for more details coming soon!), as well as connecting with our company values through visioning exercises, calendar optimization and internal operations improvements.

As usual, we started with a series of discussions to define and brainstorm topics, and eventually organized notes and moved them into a formal retreat planning document. We use Peridot Travel, an amazing travel planning company, to help set our fun and relaxation itinerary, which we then examine and build working hours around. Once the schedule and hourly constraints are defined, we do an iteration round where we decide on the most important work activities that fit within our availability. In this phase, it’s critical to pick only the most important goals and do aggressive scope-limiting, to ensure that we’re able to accomplish tangible outcomes on our trip.

The day of arrival

Over the years, we have learned to embrace a slow start to retreats. We never work on the first day. This year, we arrived on a Saturday and chose to spend the entire weekend sight-seeing, eating and taking a leisurely Sunday cruise down from Lisbon to our main destination, Sagres. Highlights from this time included our amazing meal at Belcanto, strolling along Avenida da Liberdade, and taking in the beautiful rural coastside on our drive.

We stand by our “no work on the first day” rule, and want to remind others that giving employees time to adjust to new surroundings (and timezones) and get into a relaxation mindset is key to getting focused work done later.

Retreat working days

It feels like every year we get better at optimizing these. This year, we planned for 4-6 hours of work per day, flanked with fun activities. Cristina and Madison love surfing, so they spent their mornings paddling out at a local beach. Stephanie and Jordan enjoyed morning birding and hiking excursions. Our team would meet up for lunch and start work at that time. We picked activities that bring joy and fulfillment to our employees, and also made sure that these activities would be energizing for the rest of the day. This is a key consideration if you are going to work later - you don’t want to pick activities that will be stressful or draining before you need to be productive.

One of our delicious working lunches in Sagres

Our retreat plans are always guided by three key documents: 1) a slide deck that includes goals, activity introductions and overviews, 2) a spreadsheet with our daily schedules, and 3) a notes document to track and record discussions. All of these tools help us stay focused and organized.

The first day, we dug deep into our business expansion. We collaboratively accomplished a year of projections and plans. The second day, we did company value visioning and connections. The third day, we focused on internal operations and team dynamics. Here are a few of the biggest lessons from this work:

Sometimes you just have to put your heads down and do busy work. We have a love/hate relationship with calendar analyses and improvements, but they are so critical to our business success. Taking time in the present to make sure you have time in the future is one of the most powerful things you can do. It’s also pretty tedious (we literally go through our meetings and schedules and map everything out). Don’t be afraid to build in this flavor focused, tedious work on retreats. It can be fun to do as a group while you’re lounging by the pool or sitting out couches together. There is definitely accountability and motivation in getting these activities done in a casual, social setting.
Company values and priorities can change, and that’s okay! During our visioning, we revisited previous retreat notes and deliverables and openly critiqued them in the context of our continual company growth. Although our north stars remain the same, the way we steer our business to get there will always be shifting and improving. It can be cathartic and productive to acknowledge this head on in a focused retreat setting, and figure out what to let go of and what to embrace.
One thing that always persists is our belief in the power of our clients. It’s no surprise to anyone here that we love our clients and are continually impressed and inspired by them. We shared specific narratives and stories to validate this company value, which was a beautiful and powerful experience. We strive for evidence-based values, and sharing that evidence was a great learning opportunity. It also helps us feel confident about our mission.
Don’t ignore a chance to examine internal operations, even if they’re already working well. This year, we have been really happy with our day to day work (largely thanks to results from last year’s retreat), but in anticipation of future growth, Jordan built us a company handbook that documents all of our key policies and processes. In this review process, we discovered lots of out of date material that we no longer use, and surprised ourselves with more opportunities for improvement. It can feel hard to prioritize things that aren’t “broken”, but with an open mindset, you will always learn something to improve upon.

What’s next?

Now that we’re back in the swing of our client focused work, we can’t wait to put our learnings into practice. We’re relishing the memories of relaxation and joy from our trip. And while we’re not expecting major client-facing updates or improvements, we will be expanding our capabilities and growing our company in a significant way soon. Thanks to our hard work in Portugal, we feel fully prepared for this growth and we look forward to sharing more of those details with all of you soon!

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Madison Elliott is a UX Researcher at Google. Madison consults on data engineering and usability at Mana Financial Life Design (FLD). Mana FLD provides comprehensive financial planning and investment management services to help clients grow and protect their wealth throughout life’s journey. Mana FLD specializes in advising ambitious professionals who seek financial knowledge and want to implement creative budgeting, savings, proactive planning and powerful investment strategies. Madison brings her combined background in cognitive science, computer science and clinical psychology with her professional UX design and engineering experience to optimize workflows at Mana FLD and improve people’s lives.