Quarterly Two-Day Offsite
Every 90 days, get off the hamster wheel for two full days — one to review, one to plan.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 85%
Glazer's tactical contribution: Acceleration Partners ran quarterly two-day offsites for the leadership team through all its high-growth years. The structure is fixed — day one is a recap of the quarter (what did we do well, what did we not do well), day two is planning for the next quarter. They started with one-day offsites and, once they moved to two, couldn't understand how they'd ever done it in one. He's emphatic that for a high growth organization this is a necessary discipline: it's how you get off the hamster wheel and actually discuss the business rather than just running it.
Origin
Acceleration Partners ran these quarterly through the years it grew to a 250-300 person company. They initially ran one-day offsites; after switching to two days, Glazer says he doesn't know how they ever did it in one.
Core principles
- 01A 90-day period is the right rhythm for a leadership team to opt out of the day-to-day and reset.
- 02Two days, not one — day one reviews the quarter, day two plans the next.
- 03For a high growth organization this is a necessary discipline, not a nice-to-have.
- 04The value is getting off the hamster wheel long enough to actually discuss the business.
How to run it
- 1
Lock the 90-day cadence
Schedule an offsite every quarter for the leadership team, treated as non-negotiable rather than something that yields to a busy quarter.
- 2
Fully opt out of the day-to-day
The point is being off the hamster wheel. Half-attendance or a working offsite defeats the mechanism.
- 3
Day one: recap the quarter honestly
What did we do well? What did we not do well? Review before planning, so the plan is informed rather than aspirational.
- 4
Day two: plan the next 90 days
With the review fresh, set the plan for the coming quarter.
- 5
Don't compress back to one day
Glazer ran one-days first and found two-days incomparably better. The second day is where the actual discussion happens.
Watch out The pressure to shorten it will be constant and always framed as urgency.
In the wild
Through all of its high-growth period — scaling toward 250-300 people — the leadership team ran quarterly two-day offsites, day one recapping the quarter and day two planning the next.
→ Glazer names it as the single tactical discipline he'd recommend to any high-growth organization, and says he can't imagine how they'd previously managed with one-day sessions.
During his transition year stepping back from CEO, Glazer would still attend the offsite dinner with the team but deliberately get out of the planning session so the new CEO could actually run it.
→ The offsite kept its integrity as the new CEO's forum rather than becoming a place where the team checked with the founder.
Common mistakes
Running a one-day offsite
Glazer did this first and found two days incomparably better — one day forces you to choose between reviewing and planning, and you end up doing neither well.
Planning before reviewing
The recap has to come first. Planning a quarter without an honest account of what did and didn't work produces a wish list, not a plan.
Letting the day-to-day follow you in
The mechanism is getting off the hamster wheel. An offsite where the leadership team is still operating the business is just a meeting in a different room.
Is it for you?
Best for
Leadership teams at high-growth organizations who need a forcing function for review and planning.
Not ideal for
Very small or pre-product teams where the whole company already talks daily and 90-day horizons are meaningless.
From the transcript
“We did quarterly two-day offsites for all of our high growth years.”
“The first day was always a recap of the quarter. What did we do well? What did we not do well? And the second day…”
“We used to do one days and once we did two days I don't know how we ever did one day. You get off the…”
From the episode
Robert Glazer: The Proven Decision-Making Framework High Achievers Use to Unlock Fulfillment
Robert Glazer