Why most kick-offs don't stick

Don't start with a theme. Start with the question: what should people feel, know or do afterwards? Write it down in one sentence. If you can't write that sentence, your kick-off is too vague.

Sometimes the answer is: 'They need to know what the new strategy is and why.' Sometimes: 'They need to feel that we're in this together, despite the tough year.' Sometimes: 'They need to do one thing differently tomorrow than they did yesterday.'

Those three goals call for three completely different evenings. The first calls for clarity. The second for connection. The third for activation. A concept that tries for all three succeeds at none.

A kick-off concept is the common thread you tie the whole programme to. Not just the opening and closing, but the parts in between too. If the concept is 'this year we build our future', then you literally build something on stage. If the concept is 'we're moving from planning to doing', then every session ends with a physical commitment.

A theme is a coat. A concept is an idea that drives action. 'Space travel' is a theme. 'We launch tomorrow, who's coming?' is a concept. The concept gives meaning to every choice. A theme is just a backdrop.

A strong concept can be summed up in one sentence everyone gets straight away. If you have to explain it, it's too complicated.

Where you hold your kick-off steers how people experience it. A conference room steers towards 'meeting', an industrial building towards 'we're going to build'. An outdoor setting says 'we're zooming out', a museum 'what we do is bigger than our work'.

Choose the setting that reinforces your concept. If your concept is about renewal, don't pick a venue your company has been to ten times already. If your concept is about connection, don't pick a room with rows of chairs.

The same venue can feel completely different depending on how you set it up. A factory hall with floor cushions is something else than the same hall with high tables. Those choices are part of your concept.

A good kick-off programme moves. No three-hour blocks of presentations, no long lunch after which everyone's gone. An endless panel discussion doesn't work either.

Think in curves: high, low, high, low. Open with an energetic opening that lands the concept straight away. Then a calm, substantive moment where the strategy comes in. Then an active working moment where people do something with the content. Close with a surprising highlight that points to tomorrow.

The trap: cramming the programme full because everyone wants to say something. Cut three quarters of an hour of speeches and replace them with one moment people remember. Less is more often better than more.

With a kick-off, the gap between 'what was dreamed up' and 'what's there on the day' is often wide. That's because a creative agency and a production agency are usually two separate parties. The concept passes from agency to client and then to deliverers who weren't there when it was dreamed up.

We work differently. We come up with the concept and deliver it, in one team. Our concept people sit next to our producers. What we dream up we test straight away against feasibility, budget and production. What we produce stays true to the idea.

That saves time, money and misunderstandings. More importantly: it saves that feeling on the day itself that something has been 'smoothed over'. The kick-off your guests experience is exactly what you intended. We do both, deliberately.

A kick-off is an investment in the year. That investment deserves a concept that holds up. Not a theme someone dreamed up on a Sunday evening, but an idea that carries your team for a whole year.

Call us on 085 401 40 14 or email hello@live-impact.nl. Within two weeks we'll come back with three concepts, each with a different take on what your year should become. You choose, we deliver, all in one team.

Seriously fun.