Awaydays: The Flipchart Ritual and the Pub Test

The Absurdity Begins with the Name

There’s something faintly ridiculous about the word awayday.
It promises escape, adventure, and a whiff of the exotic.
You imagine a coach trip to the seaside, or at least biscuits that didn’t come from the office vending machine.

In reality?

It’s a conference room off the ring road (or the room down the hall), where the air smells faintly of carpet cleaner and ambition.
Flipcharts abound. Someone has brought coloured markers.
There will be a “visioning exercise.”
There will be sighs.
There will be a moment where someone says “synergy” and means it.

And yet, awaydays persist.
They are ritual.
They are theatre.
They are, in their own strange way, cultural artefacts like office plants that have survived three restructures.

Hope Meets Dread (and a Side of PowerPoint)

Awaydays are emotional Rorschach tests.

For some, they’re a chance to breathe, to think bigger, to escape the tyranny of the inbox.
For others, they’re a forced march through icebreakers and jargon, with the faint terror of being asked to role-play “collaboration.”
For most, they’re a cocktail of hope and dread: maybe this time it’ll be useful, but probably it’ll be PowerPoint.

They stir anticipation, cynicism, and sometimes a miraculously genuine connection.
They are rarely neutral.
They are the workplace equivalent of a group therapy session disguised as a strategy meeting.

Togetherness on Tap (Now with Clipboards)

The cultural story of awaydays is simple:
We’re stronger together.
We care about team spirit.
We’re investing in you.
We’re visionary.

But the delivery often feels like a group project led by someone who read one article about facilitation and bought a clipboard.

Togetherness is scheduled, timetabled, and sometimes outsourced.
The irony?
Real togetherness happens in the margins over coffee breaks, shared jokes, or the collective groan when the projector fails for the third time.

The Pub Test (Where the Real Strategy Happens)

The most effective part of many awaydays is the pub afterwards.

The flipcharts are forgotten.
The sticky notes are abandoned.
But the laughter over chips and a pint? That’s where trust is built.
That’s where hierarchies soften.
That’s where someone finally admits they don’t know what “cross-functional alignment” means.

So perhaps the awayday is just an elaborate prelude to justify the pub.
And maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

Personal Tensions: Reflection vs. Performance

Awaydays could be powerful.
They could be spaces for genuine reflection, for surfacing tensions, for reimagining how we work.

But too often, they become performances:

Everyone nods at the “vision.”
Everyone writes something vague on a sticky note.
Everyone returns to business as usual.

The personal tension is this:
Do we dare to be honest in these spaces, or do we play along with the theatre?

If you find yourself at an awayday, here are some soft tactical prompts:

When asked to “vision the future,” ask: what would actually make my daily work feel lighter, kinder, more possible?
When faced with jargon, ask: what does this mean in practice, for real people?
When tempted to roll your eyes, ask: What’s the kernel of care hidden in this exercise?

Because even the cringiest awayday might contain a whisper of something real.

From Awayday to Restday

What if awaydays weren’t about forced fun or corporate theatre, but about genuine rest and reflection?

Imagine an agenda that looked like:

A walk in the park
A shared meal
A conversation about what actually matters
A nap (optional, but encouraged)

That would be an awayday worth having.
Not a performance.
A pause.

Returning to the Question: What’s the Point?

The point is not the flipcharts.
It’s not the jargon.
It’s not even the “vision.”

The point, if there is one, is connection.
The chance, however fleeting, for colleagues to see each other as humans, not just job titles.
To laugh.
To share.
To remember that work is not just tasks, it’s relationships.

The tragedy is that the structure often gets in the way of the substance.
But the invitation is clear:
We can reclaim awaydays as spaces of care, humour, and honesty.

Final Thought

Awaydays are strange creatures: part ritual, part theatre, part genuine attempt at connection.
They can be dreadful.
They can be delightful.
And often, they’re both at once.

The point is not the awayday itself, but what we choose to make of it.
If we treat it as theatre, it will be theatre.
If we treat it as a sanctuary, it might just become one.