Changing scene

Hello!

I hope you've had a good week.

This week, the OnUpBeyond team did something we don’t do nearly often enough. We packed up our laptops, left our usual desks behind, and headed out for a team offsite.

It was a brilliant couple of days for two reasons.

1. There is nothing quite like changing your physical environment to completely reset the way a team interacts.
   
2. Second, it gave us the perfect backdrop to officially welcome a new face to the team.

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Patrick

I am incredibly excited to announce that Patrick Maier has joined us as GM. Patrick is an ex-McKinsey consultant who has spent the last ten years in the trenches scaling various high-growth businesses.

He's stepping in alongside my fabulous colleagues, Rossiana and Claire and having his energy and perspective in the room this week was fantastic.

He's also an expert in pay benchmarking and pay negotiation! So we're looking forward to integrating his wisdom into the advice you can access via our career advice ecosystem, Momentum.

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The micro offsite

Spending the day together got me thinking about the broader concept of offsites.

Most organisations are highly familiar with the traditional version: the big, formal, once-a-year hotel booking with a packed agenda and sticky notes all over the walls.

Those have their place. But I’ve become a massive believer in a completely different approach: the micro offsite.

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A different setting

You don’t need a massive corporate budget or a hotel conference room to capture the value of a different setting. In fact, some of the best team sessions we've ever had have been completely low-fidelity.

Once a month, try taking your standard team meeting entirely out of the office ecosystem.

In the past, we’ve done things like walking down the river, sitting on the grass in a local park, or setting up camp in the public seating area of an art gallery.

If you haven't tried this with your own team, the data on environmental changes shows why it works so well:

Movement unlocks creativity. There is a fascinating psychological connection between physical movement and cognitive breakthroughs. When you do a walking meeting, you aren't just getting steps in—the literal act of moving forward triggers linear, fluid thinking that you simply cannot access while staring at a Zoom screen or sitting in a boardroom.

New spaces shatter old dynamics. When you sit in the exact same chairs every single week, team dynamics become rigid. People tend to speak in the same order and hold the same defensive postures. Put those exact same people in a completely non-work environment, and the conversational hierarchy naturally dissolves.

It underpins enjoyable work. Beyond the tactical output, micro offsites give you the informal spaces to actually get to know your colleagues as humans. Understanding what drives the person sitting next to you outside of their daily KPIs, is the single greatest predictor of team trust and psychological safety.

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Small gestures

The mistake most leaders make is thinking that team alignment requires grand gestures. It doesn't.

It just requires a deliberate break from routine.

So my challenge to you this month is to look at your calendar, pick one recurring team meeting, and completely strip away the corporate backdrop. Go find a park, a quiet gallery space, or a stretch of river.

Get your team moving, change the context, and watch how quickly the thinking changes with it.

Have a great weekend.

Best wishes,

Rich

ps. Patrick is already hitting the ground running with us, and we are mapping out some incredibly exciting updates for our community over the coming months. If you want to drop him a quick welcome note or have thoughts on what you'd love to see from OnUpBeyond next, hit reply—I’ll make sure he sees it.