Any day now, our publisher Phil Saran will come into my office (or maybe send me an e-mail) and ask, "Isn't it about time we started planning our 2004 media kit?"

This sentence immediately triggers two emotions: Dread (Great, on top of everything else, more work to do) and Enthusiasm (Great, I can't wait to go over ideas for new articles and special supplements to publish).

As temperatures rise, and things start to really get green (here in Chicago, at least), if your company hasn't begun seriously planning what you're going to do next year, you're running out of time. One way of formulating these plans is via a Staff Retreat.

Bringing together your company's talent for a strategic retreat is an investment in your future. How you go about it, though, will determine whether the retreat delivers a workable plan or simply becomes another "golfing junket."

Business consultant Dave Jennings of Business Acumen, Inc., suggests applying five retreat principles:

1. Define the purpose. Don't begin with vague statements about "getting together to talk." Instead, decide what you really want to gain. What do you expect to be different afterwards? Without a clear purpose, the retreat will yield disappointing results, Jennings says.
   One "reverse" question to ask: "What do you not want to happen at the retreat or after it?" When answering this question, you often come back to what you really want to accomplish.
2. Prepare yourself. Along with gathering data, be clear about your role at the retreat. Are you going to be a participant or a leader? A top killer of strategic retreats is a leader who talks too much, Jennings warns. For critical meetings, consider hiring a skilled facilitator to assist in achieving the retreat's goals.
3. Prepare your team. After all involved are aware of the retreat's purpose, assign data-gathering tasks. This may revolve around customers, operations or staff opinions. For example, Jennings suggests giving the team three questions to answer prior to attending the retreat. This pre-work helps get people focused.
4. Define the process. Start by agreeing about the ground rules on how you'll work together. Set expectations about how everyone gets heard, how disagreements are resolved, and decisions are made. Consider providing time for large group and small group interaction. Keep discussion moving by creating a "parking lot" for important issues outside the scope of the retreat, Jennings advises.
5. Follow up on decisions. The overall retreat design must include follow-up. Set a date for team members to report on their actions. This type of commitment increases the likelihood of things getting done. Once back at the office, remember: "That which you hold people accountable to do, gets done." Everything else is a list of niceties. By connecting business results to what happened at the retreat, the team can see that its efforts paid off, Jennings says.

Our media-kit planning retreat has gotten much more successful over the past few years specifically because we've applied many of these basic principles. Good luck on your efforts to organize a forward-looking retreat.