When did you last bring your team together for a day of learning, growing and celebrating?

Successful businesses with a strong culture have a consistent rhythm of connection (that is, when, where and how the team connects and communicates).

There's no question that a recurring and engaging series of 10-minute to 1-hour meetings spread throughout each month creates a culture of connection.

Short, sharp and purposeful meetings are super-powerful; however, the best performers in a high-performance culture are also usually biased toward learning and collaborating.

An often-overlooked part of a successful rhythm that meets your business and employees' needs is a commitment to in-person connection for the entire business.

That's where the investment in a more extended, half-to-full day in-person event can be the missing ingredient.

At The Physio Co, we have a once-per-year conference for our team known as TPC Swarm. It involves a full day of learning, growing and celebrating.  The agenda for the day is pretty packed, starting with a morning Walk Club, followed by some scheduled time for a coffee and chat before we launch into a day of workshops from internal and external experts; usually some friendly competition in the form of soccer, pickleball or basketball and time allocated to rewarding and recognising members of our team with a series of annual awards - all planned with time to chat, eat, connect and collaborate.

There are plenty of variations on how you could design and run your conference or 'team day' - I've seen many of them - and you can definitely start small.

Your event could be an intimate event on-site in your usual building, possibly in the afternoon or evening (that's how TPC Swarm started).

Or it could be off-site in an interesting location like a co-working space with external speakers that inspire and support your work as a business owner.

Perth based legal firm, Curae Law, asked me to help them design and host their first-ever team day, which became known as 'Curae Connect'.  That event was held in a dedicated, off-site meeting space with an important theme: To learn, grow, commit and connect to the Curae of the future.

Curae Connect was a big success. It was part of an ongoing project to reconnect and re-energise the Curae Law team as an innovative, mature business - and it worked!

Another example is a mid-year celebration that Bradyn and the team at Coerco put on for their 150-person team at their local footy club.  The event, involving company updates, reward, recognition, learning and inspiration, ended with plenty of food, drink and time for chatting with fellow 'Coerconians' (their term for members of the Coerco team!).

So, is it time you started planning an in-person event to take your culture to the next level?

Keep at it.

PS - Info about speaking and facilitating I do at events like Curae Connect and Coerco is over HERE.