
Retreat!
Our annual post-retreat musings on the important of shared suffering, competition, and tequila Chenmark has geographically disparate, decentralized operations. While this structure has many benefits, one downside is that the leadership team rarely spends time together. Since strong interpersonal relationships across companies form the connective tissue that makes Chenmark special, a couple of years ago, we decided to dedicate resources toward bringing the team together for an in-person annual retreat. For this sort of thing, some companies spend a lot of money going to fancy resorts. Others bring in name-brand speakers to deliver motivational keynotes. Others do trust-based team-building activities.