GUEST COMMENT: Unfortunately, off-sites are back
Forget the state of the state in Greece, the increasing fear of the European debt mountain and the country by country downgrades being undertaken by the ratings agencies (reflecting their very limited credibility these days). Forget the overhang of the coalition budget, inflation and the state of the currency. Forget all of that (and anything else that worries you), because things must be getting better - off-sites are back.
Off-sites indicate that we are moving towards the second stage of the investment banking life cycle. Following mass hiring and multiple offsites for the new management teams, there will be a reality-check on results. This will be rapidly followed by cost cutting, more cost cutting, mass redundancies, the realisation that no one knows how to work the photocopier [repeat from start ad nauseum, ad infinitium].
1) The team-building day
There are two main types of offsite (three if you include the recently introduced 'on site' concept - a long meeting by any other name, maybe with sandwiches that probably cost more due to your internal office pricing than a nice lunch outside of the office with wine and dessert).
The first is the universally dreaded 'team building' day. Invariably, more popular with a certain group of (largely male) staff who are insanely competitive and not so much interested in team building as in proving once and for all that they are the office hard man.
I once went on one of these that was entirely based around a never ending five a side football tournament. It was kicked off by the boss and three of his thick necked henchmen, who picked teams in a way that can only be compared to a primary school playground. Some people are still in therapy as a result.
2) The decision forum
The second type is the 'decision forum'. Terrifyingly positioned as the best way to get a disparate management team to agree on a strategy, this offsite is about politics and bullying. Machiavelli would probably feel ever so slightly threatened by the amount of manipulation, bribery and naked ambition in evidence during these events.
In 'decision forums,' Powerpoint is inevitably wielded as the main weapon. Life threatening levels of boredom are a real risk following the realisation that you are on slide seven of 42 in the first presentation of the day. This is alleviated only when the one who has worked out how to do animation, forgets to 'click' and completely looses control.
What people generally fail to realise, however, is that the real power in decision forums lies in the hands of the person writing up the notes who is generally not considered worth canvassing. Whoever they are, their version of events will be the one that goes back to the office to be enforced.
Either type officially either begins or ends with drinks and dinner. The onsite also ends with drinks and dinner but as it will be unofficial, the group is usually split into factions who spend their evening in different locations talking about the others behind their backs. At the offsite, of course, you are all together so faux bonhomie is obligatory.
The true purpose of the off-site
Ideally, you would never be invited to an offsite in the first place. However, they have a function. Death by Powerpoint followed by lukewarm hotel food are a necessary prelude to the prolonged session at the bar and mini bar in which all off-sites end. Friendships forged under such circumstances can last a lifetime. Banks could save themselves a lot of money and everyone else a lot of time if only they faced up to the pointlessness of the rest of it.
