What's the point of retreats for a remote company? Alex sums it up pretty well in this quote: "But retreats, man, every single person looks forward to those retreats. Every single person. I think that if I were to tell the members of my team, hey, we are going to do retreat out of your vacation time, most of them will say, yes, I'm going to do it. We don't do it and you shouldn't do it. But that's how excited they are about it."
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A big thank you to our post-production wizard, Vanesa Monroy.
[A moderately paced, trip hop song that is best described as chill and cruising. Synth and techno drums are the primary instruments in this track. This is our podcast background music, it starts playing at the very beginning]
[00:00:00] Andres: [00:00:00] Hi, I'm Andres
[00:00:05] Josephine: [00:00:05] and I'm Josephine. Welcome to the Remoter Podcast.
[00:00:08] Andres: [00:00:08] Follow us in season one of this journey as we cover anything and everything you need to know in order to successfully build and scale a remote first team. Someone who's been working remotely for over a decade, our CEO, Alexander Torrenegra shares his personal experiences, lessons learned and advice for those of you who are curious and interested in exploring the future of work.
[00:00:33] [00:00:30] Josephine: [00:00:33] This podcast is brought to you by Torre, the end to end recruitment solution for Remoters. Get our free AI powered sourcing and processing tools, or let Torre recruit on your behalf at torre dot co. That's T O R R E dot C O.
[Music stops playing]
[00:00:52] Andres: [00:00:52] So welcome back for a new episode, and on this one we're going to be talking about retreats and telling you a little bit about what retreats [00:01:00] are like at Torre.
[00:01:02] Josephine: [00:01:02] Oh, this is so exciting. I... like the only retreats I've ever been on with the company, uh, we went to play BATTLAX. Um, so that's axe-throwing and, um, it's just way harder than you think. I was really bad at it. But what are retreats like at Torre?
[00:01:22] Andres: [00:01:22] Well, it's not, it's, we don't go throwing axes at anything, or whatever. We, it's actually a full [00:01:30] week, um, and we're gonna hear all about the details that aren't on the podcast, but just a sneak peek, I think. Um, listeners are going to like is we, it's actually a week in which we don't focus on strategy or alignment.
[00:01:44] We would rather focus on team building and just getting to know each other because I think that's a very important, we think that's a very important aspect of building a, um, successful remote team.
[00:01:55] Josephine: [00:01:55] I don't know if you can say, but do you know where we're going this year or next year? I [00:02:00] guess 2020.
[00:02:01] Andres: [00:02:01] Well, I don't know. We don't have any plans set for 2020 yet. Um, but I think we will do a retreat and then once we decide where it will be, of course you're invited. I'm, I'm cordially inviting you.
[00:02:14] Josephine: [00:02:14] Thank you. Thank you.
[00:02:18] Erik: [00:02:18] So Alex, you take the whole company on vacation for a week.
[00:02:21] Alex: [00:02:21] We go party like animals, hahaha.
[00:02:24] Andres: [00:02:24] Like nerds.
[00:02:25] Alex: [00:02:25] Well, like nerds, indeed. Um, last time that [00:02:30] Andres attended, uh, is the only time I think you have attended. Yeah, a retreat we did it just because, because of him. But before that we actually, we actually worked. So how was your experience on this, on this, on this retreat? I been to several. I like to know some of your best memories from it.
[00:02:48] Andres: [00:02:48] No, but the retreat was great. I mean, I'm, I'm not, I'm not too old, but I felt like I was back at school. You know, when you go with your friends and these little trips, camping trips or whatever that you're, you don't have your parents on top of [00:03:00] you and you're like, you have this place for yourself.
[00:03:03] Alex: [00:03:03] Did you say that it felt like a school?
[00:03:05] Andres: [00:03:05] It felt like a school trip, like a camping trip.
[00:03:07] Alex: [00:03:07] Okay, but like middle school, not high school because you didn't finish high school.
[00:03:10] Andres: [00:03:10] Well, yeah. Okay. But I don't think its so important for the audience, but yeah, like middle...
[00:03:14] Alex: [00:03:14] Well, but you have this, it's more like a primary school trip. It's very different from a high school trip.
[00:03:22] Andres: [00:03:22] I don't know how high school trips go, but precisely for that reason I was, I was working on my high school, my high school, high school trip, a time. But [00:03:30] anyways, um, it was a great experience actually. I will highly recommend it to any, any company to do it. I don't think companies in product market fit, like pre-product benefits should do it. I think it's uh it's a lot of money and it's, um, and it takes a lot of time and, you know, it takes arrangements and preparations and so, and I think you should just focus on getting to product market fit, but, but afterwards, as soon as you can, it strengthens the bonds amongst the teammates. So where did, where did, where did the original idea came from in the first place
[00:03:57] Alex: [00:03:57] Three years ago however, I [00:04:00] decided that maybe we wanted to do a full on retreat, not only with the leadership team, but with every member of the team. We did it in a little town in Colombia, called Villa de Leyva in Boyacá, it's four hours away from Bogotá, the capital of Colombia. You have to picture this. There's a colonial town. It's very picturesque. You find a lot of locals still wearing farmer clothing.
[00:04:29] Andres: [00:04:29] Roads are made of [00:04:30] stone.
[00:04:30] Alex: [00:04:30] Yeah. Actually they don't allow cars in the downtown area of these towns. So the hotel was relatively small. We had it for ourselves. No one else was staying at the hotel.
[00:04:41] I think that back then, we were like 40 people also. This is Bunny Studio and Voice123. We were just one company back in the day and we were there for, I believe, three days and two nights. Although we had lots of fun, we also did a lot of work. It was, we were planning the next year and uh, given that everyone was there, we decided to [00:05:00] pursue both a bottoms-up approach, where people would propose what their teams had to do and such, and also a tops-down approach, where I would l ask them to think about different things. And at the end of the retreat, we agreed on what was going to be the strategy for the next year. It went well. I mean, at night we had fun. We went out to the town, we had a couple of activities. We rode horses together, like 40 horses at the same time going around town, uh, it was cool.
[00:05:24] Andres: [00:05:24] Are there 40 horses in Villa de Leyva?
[00:05:27] Alex: [00:05:27] I think we got everything going with them.
[00:05:29] Andres: [00:05:29] All the ones, [00:05:30] even the ones that were sick, they were going with them.
[00:05:33] Alex: [00:05:33] But anyway, we picked Villa de Leyva for a strategic reason, and that is, it was one of the least expensive places to get everyone to, because we had to fly people from multiple different countries.
[00:05:44] We have many members, many of our remote team members are based in Colombia anyway, and the off season is a relatively affordable place to go. So it doesn't have to be particularly exotic or anything. Just yeah, no, hopefully isolated. It's about the team and not about the place so much. A [00:06:00] few months later, I started having a second. Second thoughts about the idea because several members of the team were telling me when we were about to have an important decision to make, "next time we see each other in person, we'll, we'll, we'll talk about the topic" and I don't like that because if you have a remote team, the team needs to feel comfortable making hard decisions remotely.
[00:06:24] You don't have to see somebody else's face to face in the same room to be able to that. You should be able to do [00:06:30] it over a video conference. Right. So because of that and as because of input from Santi Jaramillo, he used to be the COO of the company, now he's the CEO of the entire holding or group of companies.
[00:06:44] We decided to try something different in next year, the following year, and that is we are not going to do a strategic retreat. It's not going to be about strategy is going to be about getting to know each other and about the learning. So it became more of a conference [00:07:00] per se, I need to structure in a kind of conference.
[00:07:03] So, um, there were activities in which you got to compete, uh, in groups with other members of the, of the team. There were sessions in which some of our advisors talk about something they do, or something they know that, um, that is potentially really, really cool. There were other members of the team volunteering to host activities, and the activities when all the way from work-related activities such as [00:07:30] finding what we call inhibitors of the team and accelerators of the team.
[00:07:34] To story telling nights where people would stand up and, and in front of an audience, share a story. And then the best story teller would get a, a prize of some sort. Oh, fun. Oh yeah, definitely. And we realized, wow, this is, this is, this is much better than, than having a strategy because it's, um, it ended up being about getting to know each other and allowing members of the team to interact with other [00:08:00] members of the team in a different dimension.
[00:08:02] Allowed them to get to know each other in a different way and hopefully build relationships, a stronger relationships with their colleagues.
[00:08:14] Erik: [00:08:14] So it sounds like a big vacation then, right?
[00:08:16] Alex: [00:08:16] Well, I mean, kind of. I mean, like, it's not like we take away vacation time from members of the team, um, to do it and we expect all of them to go.
[00:08:23] Andres: [00:08:23] I don't think it was vacation. I mean, I think it was fun, but it had some, it had a lot of strategic value behind it and [00:08:30] learning like, I know, I know...
[00:08:31] Alex: [00:08:31] It had a strategic value, although wasn't about strategy.
[00:08:34] Andres: [00:08:34] No, no, it wasn't about, it wasn't about strategy but it had a lot of strategic value. It wasn't like we were chilling, we were relaxing. We were taking a sunbath and margaritas, let's, that's not, that's not the purpose of it.
[00:08:43] Alex: [00:08:43] It was intense.
[00:08:44] Andres: [00:08:44] Yeah, it was intensive. And we had things scheduled from like 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM so, I mean, I usually work 14 to 18 hours a day, I know, but still it wasn't a break.
[00:08:55] Alex: [00:08:55] What was the most boring part and what's the most fun part of it?
[00:08:59] Andres: [00:08:59] I, well. [00:09:00] The most boring part was the part where we had a discussion. The entire team had the only team that had discussion like a, like a big discussion and like, yeah, no argument in the entire company was us. Of course, they had to be Torre Labs. I was causing trouble. Um, but there was a lot of fun parts as well.
[00:09:20] And it made me realize a lot of interesting things. Like for example, I'm not kidding, we were the only team that didn't understand what the hell did we have to do in the [00:09:30] design thinking activity. We had a design thinking activity with the Spanish guy we flew in, and we had to do some like structuring, what the hell do we do as a company, right?
[00:09:38] Erik: [00:09:38] And you just didn't get it.
[00:09:39] Andres: [00:09:39] And we didn't know how to, how to help. Like we're a company in a pre product market fit stage, um, getting there, you know, experimenting, testing things. Changing our strategies every week. Right? And we're competing with companies that exist 17 years ago, right? It's not an easy, but we were the only ones that didn't get the exercise, but we were also the, the winners of that exercise at the end.
[00:10:00] [00:09:59] Ah. So here's how we were able to iterate fast in between each phase of the whole exercise. And I was able to hack the audience because the purpose of the exercise was originally to allow people to express in a structured way, what is it that they do and how they do it, and blah, blah, blah. But the way that that the exercise was being qualified was by peers, by others.
[00:10:23] Okay. So in reality, the end goal was not to be the best at explaining what the hell do you do, it was to be the most impressive one [00:10:30] at explaining what you do. Right? So we ended up building a bunch of, and we had to do this with Legos, um, cause of course, you know, consultants always used Lego's. So we had Legos and it was actually pretty fun because the end result was a result. But like we literally put Alex like three floors of Legos and then everyone else in the floor. And Alex had a magic wand with which resembles a weapon.
[00:10:52] Alex: [00:10:52] And that's supposed to reflect the value of the company somehow.
[00:10:56] Andres: [00:10:56] It doesn't really, it doesn't really reflect this idea of the company. But it was fun for people [00:11:00] because we were making quote unquote fun of our CEO.
[00:11:02] And he used to be the CEO of the other companies. So like people felt like the, the connection and they, and they laughed and blah blah blah.
[00:11:09] Alex: [00:11:09] So for context on this one, it was, all of the companies of our group went together. So Torre is one of the companies, Voice123 was another company. Bunny Studio was a company. We were three companies back then for this retreat that I'm refering to.
[00:11:22] Erik: [00:11:22] So it was the first time you all got together?
[00:11:24] Alex: [00:11:24] No, no, no, no.
[00:11:25] Andres: [00:11:25] As different companies, as different companies, yes.
[00:11:26] Alex: [00:11:26] Yes, because we used to be just one single company in the past. Now [00:11:30] we are separate companies, but for the retreat, we got together.
[00:11:33] Erik: [00:11:33] And only one of them didn't understand the instructions. I guess you're not just not used to it.
[00:11:37] Alex: [00:11:37] I think it was more like Andres that didn't get it.
[00:11:41] Andres: [00:11:41] Well, I asked, yeah, well, I don't know. Wait, we're not going to get into an argument.
[00:11:44] Alex: [00:11:44] Really good memories. There was another activity where we were supposed to draw our feelings of the people that we valued the most. I mean, there were multiple tracks, so there were people divided into multiple activities. Within 20 minutes, I was crying a lot. [00:12:00] And half of the members on that activity were crying as well. It was a very, very emotional activity. Thinking about gratitude and the people we value and the people that has that impact on us, and then sharing those feelings with our teammates, that made it even stronger.
[00:12:16] Andres: [00:12:16] You talk a lot about how we shouldn't be a family, we should be a team, but it seems like these retreats, they kind of push the idea that we're more than a team in a way. What are your thoughts on that?
[00:12:29] Alex: [00:12:29] I [00:12:30] think that the retreat is about opening up and I think that it's easier to know to open up with friends as opposed to open up with family, at least on my case, right.
[00:12:42] So I think that what family means is different for different people. Sure. But, but I think that the retreat was more about developing friendships, which I think is very compatible with the idea of being part of a team.
[00:12:52] Andres: [00:12:52] Yeah. Because you know, for the past episodes and, and, and all that we've recorded, it seems like you're a called a cold kind of boss, [00:13:00] and you know, that we, we are, we're a fast team.
[00:13:02] We're not a family and blah, blah, blah. But it's not that you don't want people to have healthy and friendly relationships, or at least that's, that's a different message from what a retreat is.
[00:13:13] Alex: [00:13:13] Yeah, very different. I think. I mean, I think that in the retreat you end up developing potentially closer friendships than the relationships that you might develop alongside many people that might work out of the same office space because it's intense and mainly people look forward to that. It's also very [00:13:30] sensorial uh, I think especially for people that are traveling a lot. Those are retreats where we had people from 15 different countries, I believe. I mean, the tee shirt was a world map signaling the countries where people were coming from and it had a load of dots in the map. So that was, that was really cool.
[00:13:46] And those interactions are just memories that are very difficult to, to forget. By the way, we have to get people ready. So, so for those of you planning on doing a retreat and having people from multiple cultures, you have to reach [00:14:00] agreements in terms of what is appropriate and what it is not appropriate.
[00:14:04] For example, it's not so much about where do you live the retreat, but about the company in general, right? So we have members in, for example, in Colombia. There is a tradition that when you say hi to when a guy says hi to a girl, usually you kiss that person in the cheek, right? Even if you're being introduced to that person, uh, for the first time.
[00:14:30] [00:14:30] But it's only in between men and women or in between women, never between men. In Argentina, it's in between men. Okay. And in Europe is in between men and women, in some countries, in some countries it's between men and it's not one kiss, it's two kisses. If you go to the middle East in some countries, like you cannot even touch the person, right?
[00:14:54] So all of those things, you need to teach the team because when you're working remotely, like it doesn't [00:15:00] matter. But when you are actually sharing the same physical space with another person, they do matter. And it's very important not only to be diverse, but to be inclusive. And that means adapting to some degree the lowest common denominator in terms of what is acceptable. Right? Right. So it's not about teaching the person coming from Middle East, hey, you have to be, you have to accept kisses from everyone? Right? It's the opposite. It's telling our Latin people, hey, you guys stop kissing everybody.
[00:15:30] [00:15:30] Andres: [00:15:30] Yeah. But the good thing about having a remote team and then doing this kind of activities, it's, you're really not opening, not only opening yourself to working with people from other cultures.
[00:15:39] Uh, on a day to day basis and learn about their work, kind of related culture. But also, when you get together, you get to learn about the cultures of potentially 15 different countries in, in our case, in that particular, um, retreat and more for companies that are bigger. We're, we're all about fulfillment in, in, in work.
[00:15:56] Right? And I think that if you can add more to [00:16:00] work than the just algorithmic, uh, rhythm of it, and you can add, you know, discovering new things, try new things, learning new things to what happens in the, in the day to day, year to year of a company that adds a lot of value to fulfillment.
[00:16:14] Erik: [00:16:14] And it's interesting that you can contrast that with, you know, you don't have the day to day interaction where you don't have an office, but to make it into one more intense, really personal, emotional experience, though that's valuable as opposed to the day to day casual interact.
[00:16:28] Andres: [00:16:28] You have people that [00:16:30] work side by side, quote unquote, right. Um, every single day that they have not seen each other for months, and then they get to see each other. Right? It's like distance relations, relationships with distance. These relationships, like when you get to see the other person, it's like extreme joy and there's no time for arguments or discussions or like you're focused on just...
[00:16:51] Alex: [00:16:51] Except if you're Andres.
[00:16:52] Andres: [00:16:52] Except if you're me interacting with Alex. Because if it's just me and it can possibly go away. [00:17:00] Anyways, but yeah, it's, it's, it's very fulfilling. I think having a remote team enables you to discover things about different cultures and have ideas and ways of doing things. And it's not only interesting from a company perspective to be able to connect dots from different kind of places, but also from the culture of the company and the individuals and how they are growing by being exposed to different cultures, different, from people.
[00:17:22] Alex: [00:17:22] Yeah. You'll see it when I have, because I had the experience of having an office-based company. And we had, every now and then like, weekend [00:17:30] events or, or get together things so you could see that people were excited, but some of them were, I have to go to this thing, right?
[00:17:37] Erik: [00:17:37] It's not enough that I see them eight hours a day.
[00:17:40] Alex: [00:17:40] But retreats, man, every single person looks forward to those retreats. Every single person. I think that if I were to tell the members of my team, hey, we are going to do retreat out of your vacation time, most of them will say, yes, I'm going to do it. We don't do it and you shouldn't do it. But that's how excited they [00:18:00] are about it.
[00:18:01] So to wrap up, I have an invitation, and that is for many remote companies, when you invest on the wellbeing of the members of your team, you can do a lot of things. You can, you can pay for travel so that they can visit each other in whatever city they are located at. You can buy expensive equipment, you can send a lot of swag their way and you can pay for health insurance and many other things.
[00:18:26] Out of all of that, I believe that the most [00:18:30] important thing you can do and you should invest on, is having a periodic retreat. The ROI and the impact that is going to have on the morale, on the motivation, on the relationships and the longevity of your team, it's priceless.
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[00:18:55] Josephine: [00:18:55] I'm excited for what's to come. Uh, I know you said that there is [00:19:00] no plan set in place yet, but after hearing that episode, I will be looking forward to hearing what you guys come up with for our next retreat. But I'm curious, in the meantime, to hear what your ideal retreat would look like.
[00:19:15] Andres: [00:19:15] Well, at this very point in time in my life, I wish it was something with like a warm weather. I'm really tired of the cold here.
[00:19:25] Josephine: [00:19:25] And so you moved to Toronto. Good play.
[00:19:29] Andres: [00:19:29] Yeah. [00:19:30] No. Well, I, I think that a good retreat has to be a mix of like a place where you can relax and like de-contract and have a, um, relaxing environment. I think that in general, um, with Torre and the members of our team, we are in general very relaxed in, in our conversations and the way we work.
[00:19:50] Um, but adding like a very relaxed environment to that, I think, um, helps, helps a lot. So that's one thing. And the other thing I'd love to do and see, [00:20:00] it's more, um, hands on activities, you know, like I'd love for us to cook together or to solve a maze together or escape room together and be able to, to bond as a team through weird and fun activities. I don't know if that makes sense.
[00:20:16] Josephine: [00:20:16] It does. By the way, I think my ideal retreat would, um, yeah, the purpose would be to get to know your team members. And like, I, I am so excited for that because even though I [00:20:30] did like introductions with, um, all the team members via Zoom, eh. I think it would be incredible to finally meet them in person and be like, Oh my God, you, you are here in the flesh.
[00:20:45] You were the one who helped with this and that, and we did this together. And now, like I'm actually meeting you in the flesh and like, I can poke you and you're real.
[00:20:53] Andres: [00:20:53] Please don't poke anyone.
[00:20:54] Josephine: [00:20:54] And I mean lightly, poke lightly, but, um, I [00:21:00] think, yeah, relaxation would be, um, a lot of fun. Uh, I feel like we don't really get that in our day to days cause I believe that we work hard and it's, for me at least, I forget to take a break. I forget to relax. I'm still trying to work on that. So having a week where it's just like, this is your top priority. Get to know your teammates, get to bond, get to strengthen this bond. It would be really awesome.
[00:21:27] Andres: [00:21:27] Yeah. Rodrigo does get a lot of [00:21:30] relaxation with all the Australia around him. Oh, the beach.
[00:21:34] Josephine: [00:21:34] Or maybe he doesn't because there's a lot of animals out there trying to kill you.
[00:21:38] Andres: [00:21:38] Well, the giant spiders are not necessarily my favorite.
[00:21:41] Josephine: [00:21:41] No, not at all. And I, I did ask him about that actually, and he was like, no, we're fine in Melbourne, the big city is fine. Like, okay. Till you, till you see one . But, uh, to our listeners out there, you want to ask you real quick, what would your ideal retreat look like? Or have you guys even been on any [00:22:00] memorable retreats or stuff, let us know on social media and we'll catch you next time.
[00:22:08] Andres: [00:22:08] Thank you so much for tuning in. A few last words, if you enjoyed that episode, please...
[00:22:13] Josephine: [00:22:13] Follow us on social media @remoterproject and let us know what you think about the latest episode.
[00:22:18] Andres: [00:22:18] We'd love for you to join us as we continue building the Remoter library on our website, remoter dot com. That's R E M O T E R dot com.
[00:22:27] Josephine: [00:22:27] If you want even more resources, sign up for our [00:22:30] free Founding and Growing Remotely online course. You can find that on our website or check the description for links. Don't forget to follow and subscribe to us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, wherever you listen to your podcasts.
[00:22:43] Andres: [00:22:43] And by the way, we've got some exciting news. We're gearing up for season two. This time, we're going to go further into interviewing remote work leaders all around the world. And we'd like to ask you, what are some questions or topics you'd like to hear covered next time? Who would you like to hear on the [00:23:00] show and let us know through Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, email, um, you know, carrier pigeon, whatever it is you like, we're all ears.
[00:23:08] Josephine: [00:23:08] And remember, we're here to make work fulfilling. So what part will you play in shaping the future of work?
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