Next Monday, senior politicians from France and Germany will no doubt be looking nervous as they set sail on an awayday from the port of Hamburg to improve international relations. During the trip, members of Emmanuel Macron’s and Olaf Scholz’s teams will be expected to chat, drink, listen to talks about artificial intelligence (the on-trend topic for any corporate awayday), and then return to the city to visit a fish market. The German and French teams are hoping this trip will help to overcome increasing political tensions between the two countries over issues such as defence, energy and the future of the European economy. But it remains to be seen whether team-building on the Elbe will pay dividends.
This trip down the river appears to be a fat-free version of diplomatic bonding when compared to other historical meetings. When the English, Russians and Americans met in Yalta to settle the territorial conflicts that were expected to follow the impending end of the second world war, things were less civilised. Politicians bonded over long boozy dinners, queues to use the bathroom and beds festooned with lice. During another earlier meeting between Russian and British representatives, in the middle of a dinner party Stalin called for a machine gun, which a drunk British representative then began waving around. Luckily, another member of the British team had the foresight to check the magazine was empty of ammunition.
The Macron-Scholz team-building is less Yalta summit and more Waystar Royco-GoJo retreat, by the sounds of it. In an episode of the final season of Succession, members of the Roy family who own the ageing media conglomerate Waystar Royco head to an isolated, upmarket retreat nestled in the mountains of Norway. They meet the management team of the digital upstart GoJo, and spend their time together taking saunas, throwing axes, drinking whisky and playing plenty of corporate mind games.
This episode has proved to be an instant classic, and not only because of the brilliant acting and writing. It is also because many viewers recognise the exccruciating awkwardness that comes with corporate awaydays. Many of us know all too well the enforced fun, the menacing politics and the desperate hedonism. I have attended awaydays involving beatboxing, improvisational theatre and terrarium construction. As a manager, I have to admit that I have helped organise awaydays involving building Lego, reminiscing about childhood and lawn bowling.
Although these mainstays of corporate bonding are a routine part of working life, the evidence of their effectiveness is mixed. Most corporate retreats lack a clear purpose, veer into random discussions of impractical ideas, devolve into moaning sessions, feel entirely divorced from the real problems of an organisation, and have little or no impact on what happens back at work. A large-scale study of awaydays found that many of them fail because they are not designed particularly well. Those that actually had an impact tended to set clear goals, were mainly focused on implementation (rather than unstructured blue-sky thinking), required preparation from participants, gave participants analytical frameworks to help understand the challenges they faced, and ensured that the ideas discussed were followed up in later meetings.
While many corporate off-sites may fail to achieve organisational goals, there is an important reason for their existence. They are a form of what social anthropologists call “costly signalling”. By attending an awayday, we show how willing we are to use our time, compromise our dignity and in some cases risk our safety in service of the group of which we are part. Enthusiastically throwing ourselves into the awayday shows that we are willing to invest in that group.. Our investment of time, energy and dignity comes at a cost to us – but it is also a signal to others that we are serious. We show that we are committed to the group and we deserve its trust.
As the boat of German and French politicians leaves the dock in Hamburg, many of them will probably be wondering why they are there, when so many more important problems await them back in Paris and Berlin. The real answer to this question is simple: they are on the boat to waste a couple of days and, by doing so, show how much they mean to each other. If nothing else is achieved, when a German minister and their French counterpart share a drink after the trip is over, at least they will have something they can complain about. Their shared moaning may be the first step in reviving their countries’ long relationship.
André Spicer is professor of organisational behaviour at the Bayes Business School at City, University of London. He is the author of the book Business Bullshit
