Hi, Will - very interesting post.

I have two thoughts:

1)  I enjoyed and agree with your points, but believe that " Encourage Others To Participate" is especially important, particularly if you find yourself in a competitive and guarded environment, as so often seems to happen.

When you actively seek to engage and include others, as a trained facilitator or group counselor will do, you are breaking down the silos and encouraging folks to see you and others as collaborators, rather than competition.

This becomes a real strength when carried back to the workplace and shared with others.

2)  You asked about experiences with offsite management events.  I used to regularly take my staff off either into the woods or, at least, to a ROPES course environment for a day, several times a year.  These experiential-based and outdoor activities were always beneficial in breaking down barriers, increasing team connectiveness, and helping me understand those who I worked with at a deeper level.  You find out quickly who are the risk-takers, the cheerleaders, the thoughtful problem-solvers, and the isolators.

We usually were dealing with "made-up" scenarios, so the debriefing after each exercise was very important, especially when we had to grapple with the question "How does what we are learning here relate to what we do back at work?".

Thanks for a thoughtful and useful post.

John