The Retreat Lifecycle: Rather than talking about workflow, you walk it

What Happens When Your Whole Team Walks the Retreat Lifecycle Together?

Most retreat center staff know their own piece of the work well, but few know what their colleagues are doing a year, a week or an hour before guests arrive. At our September Community Roundtable, retreat center advisor Ling Lo shared a hands-on training she designed with HR lead Tatyana Sanikovich at a center in Big Bear, California. The 25-person team, from housekeeping to marketing, sorted every task across seven phases of a retreat, then literally passed a stuffed bear to whoever owned each step. When the bear hit the floor, they found the gaps.

The result? Changes to how they handle registration, new “hub” roles connecting programs and operations, and a cook who realized for the first time that someone was planning his retreat a full year ahead.

Read the full recap to see what the community added and the open question Ling brought to the room.