Taking Time To Come Together: A Handsome Leadership Offsite

Handsome has accomplished big things in the last 18 months, and we have an exciting path ahead of us in the next couple of years. What we do in this moment will set the stage for how we grow.

Investing in Team

100% of our success can be attributed to our talented team. As a holistic experience design agency, the outcomes we deliver to our clients are completely dependent on the mindshare, execution, and talent of our people. This is why we believe continued investment in our leadership, team, and culture is so important. Earlier this month, the Handsome executive team spent a weekend offsite to reflect, celebrate, and rally around what it’s going to take to build the future of Handsome and to kick off the next phase of our agency’s journey.

Why We Break Away

From day one I’ve considered my team of direct reports as my peers. Carving out time to align our senior leadership team is the most critical element in achieving the goals we’ve set for the agency. We need to build consensus around our vision, goals, and, values, and commit ourselves to have a big impact on the business. Getting away from the day to day and giving space for reflection, thought, and focused team-based planning is the ideal way for us to achieve these objectives.

Setting The Stage

Location and environment sets the tone for any work to be done, so we decided to venture offsite to the South Congress Hotel. The experience at the South Congress Hotel is best in class…it’s highly curated and crafted. It feels high-end but approachable. It emulates a lot of the same values and attention to detail as the Handsome brand, culture, and work that we do. This is important. We also chose to have the sessions moderated by Blue Sky Partners instead of doing it ourselves. Having a third party craft and facilitate the overall exercise allowed the entire Handsome leadership group to act as a team of peers and be fully focused in on the tasks at hand. Blue Sky Partners are best in class at what they do and helped us get the most out of the time.

What We Focused On

The high-level goal of our time spent together during this session was to galvanize the leadership team around a shared vision for the next phase of the company. We want to continue the momentum and growth we’ve experienced in an even smarter and more strategic way. Just as important, I wanted everyone to feel they were equally contributing to the vision of where we’re going. As CEO, it’s important for me to learn about what everyone thinks and wants their role to be, as well as to learn about everyone’s near-term commitments. As general practice in our company, I want everyone to contribute, influence, discuss, and ultimately play a part in crafting the goals of the agency. Having this group-based approach to forming the strategic vision, goals, and plans means there is even more solid buy-in at an individual level and less room for error going forward.

Some of the things we covered in this month’s session included:

• Storytelling about what our work and our life looks like in two years, and the goals we want to set to get there
• Assessing and talking about the gaps in our brand, capabilities, culture, and leadership team
• Committing ourselves personally to the shared vision and what it’s going to take to get there

And Of Course…Celebrate. Reward.

Our team achieved amazing progress (via very hard work) over the last year, and it’s critical for us to take the time to celebrate and reward ourselves for a job well done. “Celebration” goes beyond a nice dinner or craft cocktails. True celebration is acknowledging the accomplishments of the group and recognizing individuals for the contributions they have made.

Each member of the team also deserves to have a high level of investment and commitment from their teammates going forward. The openness to new ideas and alignment that was developed fueled the energy and excitement for the future coming out of the event. Spending quality time together as an executive team helped us learn a great deal, have open and honest conversations, and spend some well-deserved quality time with each other.

Coming back to work feels like a new beginning. It symbolizes the start of a new way of acting, behaving, operating, and leading.

Where We Go From Here

Going into 2019 we have a tremendous amount of momentum and growth. The leadership team has a lot of hard work ahead and high expectations for this next year, which is why it’s important that we invest in a strong team dynamic, clear vision, and the leadership to get there. We came out of our time together with a new language and ambition for how to continue the conversation in our day-to-day work and processes. By preserving and building our values and culture, we’ve been able to achieve steady, elegant growth. We haven’t lost sight of who we are and what we stand for as we grow and evolve as a company, and taking time away from the day-to-day to reflect, discuss and plan our future ensures that it stays this way.

Handsome is an Austin-based holistic experience design agency.

In partnership with our clients, we create deeply connected brands, services and products that enable powerful relationships between businesses and people. From research and strategy to design and implementation, clients like FedEx, Audi, Nickelodeon, AMC, Facebook and Keller Williams trust us with the ongoing transformation of their brands and businesses. Hit me up if you want to talk.