“You can’t drag people to a boring, ho-hum conference center and expect anything but boring, ho-hum results.”
Cheryl Dahle, Fast Company

Corporations are increasingly demanding results-oriented, goal-driven retreats from their organizations. Corporate retreats must inspire participants to solve real problems rather than simply entertain employees. Companies that have embraced this reality look for inspiring and unusual environments to foster creative, innovative, problem solving gatherings.

In our opinion, companies have traditionally looked for inspiration in the wrong places: hotels & resorts. The last great thought to come out of a resort off-site was the conviction to never do it again. Our Corporate Retreats take people to places where conventional thinking simply doesn’t work. Environments that challenge you to think are the only environments capable of affecting real, sustainable change. We believe that fundamental change only occurs when retreats are staged in a truly innovative, unique, creative and holistic way.

Experiential Travel can be a catalyst in truly transforming people – forcing them to alter their perspective to "see new things and to see old things in a new way." We dazzle their senses, touch their hearts and stimulate their minds – making it possible to truly think outside the box.

“ We become more alive by simply changing our environment – in a novel setting where you can no longer count on things as they were, our senses become more finely attuned and our instincts sharpened – it’s a sure ticket to revitalized awareness” - Outward Bound Dictum

Before

After

We understand how to design an experience that has a lasting effect beyond its consumption, whether that lasting effect is in the form of a life-long memory or retention of learning – either way it is the memory that extends the experience over time. Staging experiences that resonate over time is not just about entertainment but rather about engaging all the participants in a program that finds the “sweet spot” across five different experience realms: Entertainment; Educational; Activity/Immersion; Environment/Destination; Sensory.

Horizon & Co.’s Corporate Retreats use a unique experiential approach to travel as the bridge between the corporate off-site experience and sustainable business-related goals and as the catalyst for innovative thinking. We believe that the most powerful memories are formed through the alchemy of participation and immersion, and this holds equally true for institutional/corporate memories as for more personal memories. We believe in moving beyond merely seeing the sights or getting away from it all in order to pursue the more elusive transformative moments of personal discovery and meaning.  In our experience, these moments tend to occur when people push themselves out of their comfort zones, but paradoxically, people only tend to push themselves once they have learned to slow down, breath deeply, and relax. Our expertise lies in creating the conditions in which moments of spontaneity and magic can flourish. Here, inspiration happens because we create inspirational settings.

We make it easy by taking care of all the details and distractions, arranging the necessary props, assembling the cast of local players, and otherwise setting the mise-en-scene for the theatre of travel. On our experiential trips, your team may find themselves spontaneously joining a game of boules with the village elders in Provence, getting lost in the hypnotic ballet of the wildebeest migration, sharing vodka around a Polish dinner table with a survivor of Soviet occupation, or taking the stage to act out a part in an off-Broadway play. Whether it is sailing along the banks of the Perfume River in Vietnam, riding an ox-cart through the deserted ruins of Bagan, or perusing vegetables in an open-air market in a Tuscan hill-town, the destination is just the beginning of the journey.

It’s not a ropes course – we promise! – From our perspective, corporate off sites that employ physical hardship, endurance and deprivation miss the point – the travel element of the off site is simply the catalyst to help move people out of their comfort zones (since people don’t change their behaviour when they are comfortable). Our view of the “adventure” aspect of corporate travel is that is should be about “challenging your own internal limits of daring”, not ropes courses and traditional team-building exercises. After all, Horizon & Co. is a small group luxury travel company….

Proof: We’re not the only people who believe in this concept. Many Fortune 500 companies have bought into the value of getting people out of their comfort zone as a catalyst for innovative thinking. Xerox, Timberland, Nike, Harley Davidson and many other companies participate year after year in everything from Vision Quests in the deserts of New Mexico to warp-speed team-building at Everest base-camp.

“Companies can wallow in timidity or they can realize that the case for radical innovation is stronger than it has ever been, because there are fewer options than there have ever been” Gary Hamel

The Challenge: How to cultivate creativity and original ideas (i.e. innovation)? Gary Hamel, the world's reigning strategy guru, identified the most important issue of our time as building organizations "where innovation is both radical and systemic".

The Answer: "Perspective is worth 80 IQ points". An innovative insight is rarely the product of an individual's brilliance; innovation typically comes from looking at the world through a slightly different lens. (i.e. perspective change).

The Solution: The Corporate Retreat series uses experiential travel as a vehicle to take diverse groups of people out of their comfort zone equally thereby forcing them to look at their world through a different lens (i.e. adventure).

Horizon & Co's definition of adventure is: “any intentional experience that substantially alters your perspective long enough to see things we have never before seen and to see familiar things in ways we have never before seen them”. In our opinion, programmes that employ physical hardship, endurance and deprivation miss the point – the travel element of the programme is simply the catalyst to help move people out of their comfort zones (since people don’t change their behaviour when they are comfortable). Our view of the “adventure” aspect of travel is that is should be about “challenging your own internal limits of daring”, not ropes courses and traditional outdoor adventure activities (although we're not averse to having a bit of fun while we're at it...)

 If you want results from your meetings and retreats, then change your cookie-cutter approach to corporate off-sites. We guarantee personal and corporate epiphanies through guided customized travel experiences designed to deliver tangible results.

Any company who wants to come up with concrete, innovative solutions to real-world business challenges (in other words, any company who wants even a remote chance of survival in today's business climate). If surivavl isn't motivation enough, ask yourself the following questions:

• Have you just undergone a merger and need warp speed team building with lasting impact among your new management team?
• Do you need to create ground-breaking ideas at break-neck speed?
• Do you want to assess leadership skills through a facilitated workshop using the world-renown Leadership Effectiveness Analysis 360° (LEA) Program that measures leadership abilities on 22 metrics through the eyes of your direct reports and peers?
• Have you got your own facilitator, consultant or curriculum and simply need an inspirational setting?

The traditional approach is to get the HR department to book a nice hotel, hire a cast of non-threatening facilitators, and load up on easels, flip-charts, ice-breaker exercises and yet another canvas bag with the company logo. Then, a few months later disappointment sets in – what actually changed as a result of this off-site (other than possibly a lower golf handicap and an aversion to tequila)? How did a room with so many smart people produce so few ideas with impact?

Add a Facilitator: Bring your own or let us provide one to suit your needs from our stable of leadership consultants, executive coaches, motivational speakers and authors.

Want custom? An off-site is an investment! Are you getting a return on that investment? We are happiest solving problems. Give us a corporate problem and we will build a travel and off-site experience designed to produce solutions and deliver measurable results.

Shape the vision and strategy for your team and your organization, sharpen your ability to anticipate and lead change, build involvement and improve teamwork, sell ideas and become more influential, build relationships and motivate and inspire others, take control of your own development.

Our program begins with objective, confidential feedback on your leadership abilities using the Leadership Effectiveness Analysis 360 tool. The 360° on-line assessment is completed by your boss and a minimum of 3 peers & 3 direct reports; this assessment is conducted 3 weeks prior to the workshop allowing the results to be analyzed and discussed during the workshop.  This is a world-renown tool that measures how you stack up on 22 measures of leadership effectiveness through the eyes of your direct reports and peers. These are the areas explored…

Results:

• Learn specific actions and behaviours for exceptional leadership
• Understand the impact of your approach on others
• Develop the skills you need to expand your influence
• See how you stack up on 22 measures of effectiveness
• Identify the barriers to change and how to overcome them
• Develop an action plan to make you a better leader

High Vs. Low Performing Leaders

• Understand anatomy of high performers
• Identify key differences between leading and managing
• Enhance your influence and power

Components Of Effectiveness

• Learn that there is no "right" way to lead
• Identify the leadership practices most important for you
• Identify the leadership practices that are critical for effectiveness in your role

Assess Your Leadership Effectiveness

• Understand the functions of your role as a leader
• Receive honest, objective and unbiased answers
• Receive personal and confidential feedback on your leadership practices

Create An Action Plan To Make You A Better Leader

• Isolate your development priorities
• Lock in your #1 development priority
• Drive real change through an effective action plan Implement strategies