Another was its coolship, a long, shallow steel tub traditional to Belgian ale brewing. This coolship chills the wort (the mixture of malt and hot water, step one of beer-making) overnight in the open air, allowing bacteria and naturally occurring yeast to creep into the beer.

The resulting brew is always sour, often a little strange, and rare around these parts. (In awarding Best Brewery honors in 2019, City Pages called Wild Minds coolship sour program trailblazing.) A 2017 blog post on the brewerys website credits brewer Mat Waddell with wielding its coolship, the first one in Minnesota for spontaneous fermentation in the lambic style of brewing.

The website is outdated. Waddell left the brewery more than a year ago. And these days Wild Mind leaves writing about Waddell up to its lawyers.

Wild Mind started as a three-man operation. Tylor Johnson and Jason Sandquist had business backgrounds in property and commercial real estate. Waddell, who quit a job as an engineer with Medtronic and invested $40,000 in the brewery out-of-pocket, was the brewing brain.

In mid-December 2018, Waddell told Sandquist and Johnson he wanted out, and was taking a job with 3M. Exactly how Waddell explained his career change is still in dispute. Sandquist and Johnson took the announcement as news Waddell was leaving the brewing industry altogether. Waddell, in a response filed by his attorney, says he just wanted to resign from Wild Mind.

According to legal filings, Waddell negotiated a buyout of his 35 percent stake in the company for $150,000. Then, a few months later, his name and face resurfaced, this time as the head of the mixed culture line of sour beers at BlackStack Brewing in St. Paul. Pictures from a May 7, 2019 story on the Growlers website showed Waddell and the BlackStack crew sipping pints and smiling.

Two days later, attorneys at Chestnut Cambronne issued a letter accusing Waddell of sharing confidential information and trade secrets of Wild Mind. The letter laid out a slew of accusations against Waddell, including that hed deleted Wild Minds beer recipes, though not before reliable sources saw him photograph the recipes off a computer screen.

The letter ordered Waddell to return the recipes and cease and desist his new venture, which, it warned, may expose BlackStack to liability to say nothing of Waddell himself, who was officially put on notice that there is a dispute and potential litigation.

This was merely the first volley in a series of escalating exchanges that culminated in Wild Mind Artisan Ales, LLC, filing suit against Mat Waddell in December 2019, a year and a few days after hed told his former business partners he was leaving. Exposed to the open air, the relationships behind Wild Mind were just as surprisingand souras the mixtures in its prized coolship.

In the months since that first letter, the two feuding parties have only grown further apart in their understanding of the basic facts surrounding Waddells tenure at, and exit from, Wild Mind.

The brewerys complaint added new claims, including the sweeping allegation that Waddell had been grossly derelict and rarely present for most of the entire year before he left. Through this inattention, the brewery alleged, two batches of beer that either had not been checked or managed or had not been properly brewed had to be dumped by Waddells successor, at a loss of some $105,000 to the brewery.

The complaint also restated that Wild Mind no longer had access to its recipes, that Waddell purposely misled his partners about his future plans to avoid the inclusion of a non-compete provision, and that his collaboration with BlackStack necessarily requires disclosure of Wild Minds confidential information.

Waddells attorney, Aaron Thom, fired back with a response filed in January, rebutting most of the claims in the complaint. Wild Minds recipes are stored on software the company still has, his response says, and he hasnt shared any proprietary information through his work for BlackStack.

Waddell didnt stop there, layering on explosive counter-claims of his own:

That in three years, Waddell was underpaid on his expected salary of $55,000 by a total of roughly $76,000;

That one bartender quit after Johnson made inappropriate sexual advances toward her, and another quit after confronting Sandquist for taking and retaining tips, as he often did on weekend shifts;

That Waddell had started working different hours to avoid a toxic environment set by his partners, who lost their tempers and ridiculed him in public.

Sandquist and Johnson deny the allegations about their conduct through Wild Minds attorney, Emeric Dwyer, who said, It is unfortunate that Mr. Waddell [has] chosen to try and invent or embellish facts to embarrass members of the company to make dirty laundry public, and force the company into backing down on its claims.

Wild Minds key argument, that Waddell misrepresented his exit to avoid a non-compete clause, is not just semantics, Dwyer says. At its heart, it is a matter of, how do you protect a companys reputation and intellectual property?

The two sides met in court for the first time earlier this month for a hearing on two motions. Thom, Waddells attorney, argued Wild Mind should have to pay his legal fees upfront during the case. Wild Mind, meanwhile, pushed for monthly payments from Waddells buyout to instead be paid into the court, pending a settlement or ruling. The judge has 90 days to rule on both motions.

The buyout itself might be their next battleground: Waddell now believes $150,000 undervalued his share of the company, and his attorney says hes mulling the idea of rescinding that agreement to bargain for a better deal.

Waddell says opening a brewery was an epically great creative outlet for him, and made great connections for him within the local brewing community, but that he was happy to leave Wild Mind behindor so he thought.

I was back to being me, and it was wonderful, Waddell says of starting his new job at 3M. Then in May, when I got that first cease and desist letter, my heart just sank.

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Wild Mind Artisan Ales sued its former brewer. Then things got ugly. - City Pages

Photos by Sean Finnan

Before the refurbishment of the football pitch at Bluebell Road in the west of the city, it was an anti-social blackspot, says Michael OShea, chairman of Inchicore Athletic FC.

That was our homeground and it was a grass pitch, and they were constantly getting cars burned on it and broken bottles, says OShea. It was in darkness all the time, so you never really seen who was on it.

After a refurbishment in November 2018 for Dublin City Council, a new artificial astroturf pitch was installed, as well as floodlighting and a new high-tech closed-circuit television (CCTV) security system.

I think its after drastically reducing the rate of anti-social behaviour in the area, says OShea.

Installed on the football pitch are Hikvision cameras, embedded with what is called deep learning technology, AI that trains on people visiting the pitch.

Its not totally clear how this AI works, how it identifies people, whether it has access to a database in order to identify people or whether it creates a database based off of recognising and storing peoples biometric data.

The technology is not something that the council should be using without carrying out a Data Protection Impact Analysis, says Elizabeth Farries of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties.

Hikvision cameras were installed in November 2018 to protect the councils investment in a new full-size all weather pitch at Bluebell Community Centre from anti-social behaviour, says a spokesperson for Dublin City Council.

Four cameras were installed at the new full-size, all-weather pitch at a cost of 9,416 plus VAT, according to council records released under the Freedom of Information Act.

According to the council, The information will be recorded on a local monitoring station in Bluebell Community Centre and out of hours by a Dublin City Council contracted security company, which will be encrypted and secure.

According to the website of CTS Tech, the firm that both supplied and installed the Hikvision CCTV system, a Hikvision deep in-mind NVR was included in the installation.

The Hikvision Deep in Mind NVR, according to the companys website, mimics human learning and memory processes by incorporating algorithms that improve video analytics performance, including the ability to identify human activity to a high degree of accuracy. This includes the capabilities of facial recognition.

The advantage of this technology, according to Hikvisions website, is that it will save costs by preventing false alarms triggered by things like animals, which regularly prompt unnecessary call-outs of security personnel.

Was this feature necessary? There wasnt an awareness of issues around deep learning technology so concerns werent raised at the time, says a spokesperson for Dublin City Council.

Eoin ODell, academic lawyer in Trinity College with an interest in General Data Protection Regulation, says theres always a tendency to over-engineer and buy the best technology that you can afford.

So they bought the best cameras they could afford. It turns out that it came with this additional feature, he says.

There may be a good reason for the cameras for purposes of security, says ODell. But whether the use of this specific technology is proportionate should have been analysed through a Data-Protection Impact Analysis, he says.

Dublin City Council didnt carry out a data-protection impact analysis for the installation of the cameras, according to documents released by the council under FOI.

When you are undertaking something thats going to have a significant impact on data protection or privacy, before you do it, you should undertake an assessment exactly how much of an impact its going to have and whether the impact is justified or proportionate, says ODell.

According to the Data Protection Commissions website, when an organisation collects, stores or uses personal data, the individuals whose data is processed are exposed to risks. These include this personal data being stolen, or being used for differing purposes.

A Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) describes a process designed to identify risks arising out of the processing of personal data and to minimise these risks as far and as early as possible, says the commissions website.

Under GDPR, a DPIA is mandatory where data processing is likely to result in a high risk to the rights and freedoms of natural persons, continues its webpage on DPIAs. This, they say, is particularly relevant when a new data processing technology is being introduced.

In other words, with GDPR having been rolled out in May 2018, a DPIA should have been carried out before the cameras were installed.

The Data Protection Commissioner has said that people making good faith attempts to comply in circumstances where they dont quite achieve full compliance, there would be a little bit of give and take there, says ODell, whereas somebody that is deliberately flouting the rules, they would be less accommodating.

Its not just for such deep learning CCTV cameras that a DPIA would be needed, says ODell. Its generally needed for traditional CCTV cameras too to analyse whether or not their use is proportionate for reasons of security.

According to a spokesperson for Dublin City Council, a data-protection impact analysis is currently being undertaken retrospectively.

The cameras are currently turned and because of the unease around HKVision [sic] camera Dublin City Council will make arrangements to substitute the cameras with more traditional CCTV cameras, says a spokesperson for Dublin City Council.

Unease around Hikvision cameras is a result of their use for surveillance in China. Hikvision is a Chinese company, partly owned by the Chinese state, and one of the worlds leading manufacturers of surveillance technology, including that of facial recognition.

The council have yet to respond to queries as to whether similar cameras were installed in other places in the city without data-protection impact assessments being properly carried out.

Theres a danger, says ODell, that such technology creeps in without a proper conversation around whether its use is proportionate or not.

Its a classic example of mission creep, you put something in for a good reason and then you ramp up the use. So CCTV has a good underlying reason and then you expand and you expand and youve increased the level of surveillance to an almost impossible extent, he says.

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Council Installed Cameras with Facial Recognition on Football Pitch - Dublin Inquirer

Gardening has been described as an act of faith. In Vermont with its short growing season, uncertain weather and rocky soil the activity requires a special kind of fortitude, as well. And it helps to have the guidance of someone who's as hardy as the native plants. Someone like Jen Kennedy.

The Underhill resident, 37, has worked as a professional gardener in Chittenden County for almost 20 years. From designing new perennial beds to helping maintain established gardens, Kennedy does it all.

"There are definitely unique challenges when it comes to locations, what people like and what's going to look good in their garden," she said, "but I really enjoy that."

When she's not working on other people's gardens in season, Kennedy is busy tending her own. And although her white clapboard home and perennial-filled grounds may seem like a quintessential Vermont idyll, it wasn't always this way.

Twelve years ago, when Kennedy inherited her grandparents' homestead built in 1852 as a local school the property was in a state of disrepair. Her grandmother's flower beds were overgrown and neglected, while the backyard was littered with old cars, rusted fences, dismantled sheds and even an old forge. (Her grandfather, Roy Kennedy, was an artist and sculptor who had a thing for scrap metal.)

Kennedy has spent the last decade transforming her grandparents' eclectic artists' den into her own private paradise.

"It took a long time, but I had a vision and I just kept with it," she said.

Kennedy's work, in both her clients' gardens and her own, is equal parts restoration and creation. Consider the terraced perennial beds in front of her house, originally planted by her grandmother. Kennedy has diligently saved many of the plants, including the Dictamnusalbus (gas plant), Pulmonaria (lungwort) and Mertensia virginica (Virginia bluebells). But she's also added new varieties such as Nepeta sibirica (catmint) and Astilboides tabularis (shield leaf) to give the beds her personal touch.

Kennedy grew up just down the road and credits her grandmother with teaching her about plants. "I learned a lot from my grandmother, but mostly I learned to love gardening," she said.

Her grandparents didn't own a TV or a phone, so when Kennedy visited, they spent their time outside. "There was an emphasis on edible landscaping and foraging for wild foods," she remembered. "It was just part of life back then, but we've gotten away from it."

Tucked behind the house is a private pastoral landscape fringed with old-growth apple trees. The vegetable garden, a large circle in the center of the backyard, is looped with a thin electric fence to keep out the deer (who love Kennedy's hydrangeas and daylilies but leave the hyssop and thyme alone). A wooden pergola frames the entrance, and pea-stone paths separate the raised beds, which are hip-high to make planting and weeding easier.

This is not a garden of straight lines but rather a cheerful jumble of flowers, herbs and vegetables sweet peas, tomatoes, peppers, Brussels sprouts, rhubarb and garlic growing together in verdant harmony.

"It's not intentional," said Kennedy with a laugh. "I plant mostly by height and shading. I like to grow small amounts of several different things. There is a science to plant companions, but I haven't used it."

Kennedy is a proponent of creating outside "rooms" to extend indoor living space, and a walk around her property reveals delightful hidden nooks. A wooden arbor laden with leafy vines shades a large table and chairs on her backyard patio. Alongside a babbling brook, two Adirondack chairs and a small fire pit offer a perfect setting for making s'mores. Just beyond the vegetable garden, a hammock sways between two old maple trees.

Although a visitor might imagine whiling away summer afternoons reading a book and sipping iced tea in such outdoor spaces, Kennedy rarely slows down; she's a woman with a vision and a strong work ethic.

Kennedy first worked as a gardener during summers while she studied art at what was then called Johnson College, and it's been her main job ever since. It's clear that the principles of art, such as complementary colors, textures and contrast, inform her botanical philosophy. In particular, she thinks about the interplay of light and shade.

For example, Kennedy often plants the bright chartreuse foliage of Hakone (Japanese forest grass) to contrast with the deep purple foliage of Cimicifuga (snakeroot).

"It's art with plants. It's my sculpture," she explained.

Making art from growing things can take a long time, though. "I once heard that gardening is the slowest form of performance art, and I totally agree with that!" Kennedy said.

Every year, she becomes enamored of a different plant. Last summer, it was Eryngium yuccifolium (rattlesnake master), a tall, white wildflower with blossoms the size of golf balls. The year before, it was hostas. "They can do dry shade and look amazing. There aren't many plants that can do that," she said.

Using her deep knowledge of native plants, as well as her yearly plant passions, Kennedy approaches her clients' gardens like a sculptor approaches a slab of marble: with a keen eye for what needs to be moved, removed or added. Many of her clients work side by side with her, and she often gives them "homework" to do between her visits.

Kennedy said she especially enjoys working in "gardeners' gardens," because "they know it's hard work, so they really appreciate what I do."

Charlotte Wheater and Mary Jane Dickerson, both from Jericho, are two such gardeners who have weeded, shoveled and planted with Kennedy for almost two decades.

"I only have one other person who works as hard as I do, and that's Jen," said Wheater. "I think of her as Mother Earth. She has a love for the land and for what it provides. She's a marvel."

Dickerson credits Kennedy with helping her see her garden in a whole new way. "She sees the contours of the land and knows how to make the most of them," Dickerson said. "Gardening with Jen is nurturing for the body and the soul."

Ask this veteran artist gardener for advice, and she'll tell you to resist the temptation to buy all your plants at once. Instead, Kennedy suggests visiting multiple nurseries throughout the growing season to collect a variety of plants that will bloom at different times.

"A lot of the creativity happens at the nursery, because you get to see what's available and what looks good together," she said. She also advises growing something edible. "That's very rewarding, because anything you grow yourself just tastes better!"

Thanks to Kennedy's counsel, Dickerson now has "a riot of nasturtiums and all kinds of mint" for summer cooking, she said.

Full-time gardening doesn't leave a lot of time for other projects, such as home restoration. So, in the winter, Kennedy turns her attention to the interior of her unique home. Here, too, she continues to patiently clear out and clean up. Where there once was a warren of small, dark rooms piled high with her grandfather's art, there's now a bright and open space. Her grandfather's sculptures hang above the hearth of the massive stone fireplace, and his large paintings are stacked neatly on wooden shelves in the corner.

Next, Kennedy plans to paint the walls and whitewash the tongue-and-groove pine ceiling. For now, she's happy to sit on the floor and sort through paint samples in palettes that echo her lush gardens outside. Making a custom home, like creating a beautiful garden, takes time.

"This is the fun part," Kennedy said. "I'm not there yet not on the inside but I can't wait!"

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Gardener Jen Kennedy Plants With Palette and Purpose in Mind - Seven Days

Authors Jason Reynolds, left, and Ibram X. Kendi spoke to students at a high school in Washington D.C. about their new book, Stamped: Racism, Antiracism and You.

NPR, Elissa Nadworny

After his award-winning book came out in 2016, Ibram X. Kendi heard from people everywhere, telling him it opened their eyes to a new way of looking athistory.

They were coming up to me and saying, It feels too late now. I wish I had read this in middle school, hesays.

Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, follows five historical figures like the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison and the activist Angela Davis and offers readers unwashed versions of who they were, and the role that racist ideas played in theirlives.

Kendi, an author and historian at American University, says history books in schools today too often dont offer students a deep enough perspective or account of who people were and what theydid.

Which led him to take up the challenge of those people who wished theyd learned these lessons in middle school: Give young people access to this history by collaborating with a writer who could take his facts (the history) and write it for a youngeraudience.

In his mind there was only one person to do it: the childrens book author, Jason Reynolds. When he let Reynolds in on this plan, he got a surprising answer:No.

History is not my thing. Im a fiction writer! Reynolds explains. But Kendi persisted, and eventually Reynolds caved. I realized [Kendi] believed in me more than I believed in myself, hesays.

Their new book is called Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, and right from its first few pages the authors promise that, this is not a history book. Instead, they say, its a book that mixes past with present in a way that young adults can relateto.

History books are written with the idea of a student in mind, but not the idea of an actual young person themselves, says Reynolds. So this book sets out to do just that, and Reynolds says its filled with the things that I needed someone to say to me when I was 15 yearsold.

In a high school in Washington D.C., NPR met with the two authors and a group of high school students who had read the book. Our conversation has been edited for length andclarity.

Jason, why were you hesitant to say yes to Kendisrequest?

Reynolds: I wasnt sort of a top notch scholar, that I wasnt a part of sort of my story, my journey. And so if a scholar comes to you and asks you to sort of make an adaptation or translation of work that theyve poured themselves into, and you dont necessarily see yourself in the same playing field, it can be a littleintimidating.

Once you got to yes, then what? How do you write a remix of something that alreadyexists?

Reynolds: History books are written with the idea of a student in mind, but not the idea of an actual young person, just the person themselves. School is for a few hours a day. But, like, there arent history books written for that kid when school is over, when the bell has rung. And so thats sort of what Im thinking about this particular book: Can I make this something cool? Because theres currency in cool. There always has been, there always will be. It matters to them. It mattered to me. It still matters to me, right? If it aint cool Im probably not gonna rock with it. This is how I am. Im still that person. So I wanted to try to figure out how to make this really complex thing that has all this information that he gave the world, how do I take it and make it feel like a fresh pair ofJordans.

Before you read this book, what did you know about the history of racist ideas orracism?

Emani James, 10th grade: I go back to like Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks and Malcolm X, we dont ever learn about what happened before then. Who knew about the first person who was ever racist? Like, I didnt learn about that. And I wouldnt even think it was in the1400s!

With history, people like to cut off certain parts that they dont want to tell us. Like theyre not gonna tell us the deep, deep stuff. You know, like they just gonna tell us the deepstuff.

Do you feel like its because youreyoung?

James: I mean it partly is because were young. But us being young, we still have a greatmind.

So, Ibram, did you encounter folks who felt like students were too young to learn thishistory?

Kendi: There were times in which people would ask, are young people ready for this history? And it was a shocking question because its so foreign to me that anyone could not recognize how we have so many young, brilliant minds who even, you know, in seventh grade, let alone 10th grade, can understand this history. Not only understand it, but apply it to their own lives. They start to get more clarity about their own lives, they are able to understand their country. And so for me, this getting deep, deep, deep, that really actually protects our young people. So we think were protecting them by not getting deep. Were actually protecting them by getting deep, by allowing them to really understand this nationshistory.

In the book you have three categories that you put people and ideas in. What are those three categories and why use thatapproach?

Kendi: One of the things were trying to do with this book is provide people with the vocabulary of how to speak about and understand racism. Know what intimately racism is and how to identify it with language. What were trying to do is give people the ability to name what they see, what they experience, what they should beresisting.

So there are the segregationists, which Jason calls thehaters.

Reynolds: The haters. Segregationists are the haters. Everybody knows what a hater is. All right. Haters. Especially when I was in school. And I know its no different for yall. Haters are the people who hate you just cause you aint likethem.

Kendi: And then theres the assimilationist. Who are thelikers.

Reynolds: Likers. Your fake friends. I mean, everybody, got em, everybody knows them too. Everybody knows the phonies. And theyre basically the ones who like you, but they like you because you are like them. You know, that is contingent upon you being likethem.

Kendi: And then theres the anti-racists, who are thelovers.

Reynolds: And the lovers. Those are your day ones, as we say. Our ride or dies. The ones who love us for being like us. They love us for who we are, not for who they are, and not for who we are to them, but for who we are tous.

In the book, you apply these definitions to the ideas people have and often, the same people write about or speak about a combination of the three, meaning people can evolve andchange.

Kendi: If people say an assimilationist idea or anti-racist idea or segregationist idea, then you apply it, even if its somebody whos your hero. I also think we should give people the ability to change. So W.E.B. Du Bois was born in 1868 and he died literally the night before the March on Washington in 1963. Thats nine decades. What he was saying, particularly in the 1890s, was more along the lines of assimilationist ideas. But by the time he was in the 1930s and 1940s, he had transformed and was largely articulating anti-racist ideas. This is what we hope for people. We want people to change and we have to give people that ability to change, but also recognize who they were at an earliertime.

Reynolds: I did have friends be like, yo, so I dont know, man. What you said about Dr. King kind of hurt! And Im like, first of all, it wasnt me, blame it on Dr. Kendi. Those are my words, but thats all hisinformation.

I do think its important that we are honest about even our heroes. It doesnt make them any less heroes, nor does it make their contributions any less powerful. But it does help us sort of get into the nuances of it all. And it does also show how fluid some of that stuff was, and has been, and is, for a lot of us. But that we should always be aiming towardanti-racism.

James: Who is your target market for this? Is it really foreverybody?

Reynolds: I never write void of the scope in which Ive come. I was a young black person. It is natural for me to speak to young black people. The book is for everybody, but Id be lying if I said that I wasnt sort of imagining [Emanis] face. Theres certain things that I do want to say to black kids, right? Like that part in Chapter 6 when I write, Africans arent savages. Right. Thats for us. Were not savages. That was specifically foryou.

Amir Perkins, 11th grade: I was surprised there were black people who had racistideas.

Kendi: Right, youre talking about Leo Africanus. Just like you have black people today who tell white people what they want to hear in order to improve their standing among white people, black people were doing that back in the 1500s! For me, if anyone is saying that theres something wrong with black people, theyre saying a racist idea and it doesnt matter their skincolor.

Amir: As educated black men, when youre in a certain situation, do you sometimes feel as though white people are intimidated by yourstatus?

Reynolds: The thing about anti-racism that to me that sits at the core of who I am is that I should never have to make myself small for everyone else to feel comfortable about my existence. Right. Why? I earned it like everybody else earns it. And Im going to be proudly who I am in every space that I am, because I belong everywhere that I choose to go. Self-actualization is at the core of an anti-racist world.

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A History Book That Isn't: Finding A Way To Teach Racism To A New Generation - OPB News

There's a lot of room for improvement in how organizations get people to work together. In fact, 39% percent of employees think that people in their organization don't collaborate enough.

Done well, team retreats can increase alignment, collaboration and performance.

However, getting your team out of the office is not enough to improve performance. You must design clear goals and purposefully design the session. If not, you're wasting your money.

I've designed and facilitated hundreds of retreats for leadership teams and executive groups. Here are seven things to consider when planning your next team offsite to ensure a lasting, positive impact.

1. Start with the end in mind.

Before you plan the session, make sure to have a clear and well-defined goal. What's the desired outcome once the offsite is finished? Identify the specific problem that you want to solve.

Does your organization need topromote psychological safety? Do you want team members to innovate more? Does your team need to improve decision-making?

Consider using a survey to identify critical issues. Ask your team for feedback and evaluate what their expectations are, too.

I always tell my clients to pick three goals and then narrow the list down to one key problem. Define the key goal and plan the session backward with the end result in mind.

2. Plan and design the offsite.

Establish clear responsibilities and who will lead the whole process.Make sure to get buy-in from senior executives to avoid disruptions during the session.

When designing the agenda flow, consider balancing energy and emotions in play. For example, after a deep reflection exercise, it's always convenient to use an icebreaker to re-energize the team.

Allow smalls breaks for people to recharge. Keep the lunch break as a free-work zone. The San Antonio Spurs eat together as often as they play together. Food and wine aren't just food and wine; they're bridges to intentional bonding: the secret sauce to their tremendous success.

Understand the right mindset required for each section of the offsite. Does the team have to flare or focus? Solving a problem requires divergent thinking. Getting alignment or making a decision requires a different type of thinking. Keep in mind that convergent and divergent thinking don't go well together. Keep them separate.

3. Involve people along the way.

Design participation from the get-go. Make sure the invite sets clear expectations and drives excitement.

One-on-one interviews don't just help you understand people's expectations but they also make people feel included.

I remember interviewing C-level executives from a global retailer to understand their expectations. Most were clueless about the team retreat and why their CEO was hosting it.

Have participants do some prep work.If your goal is to create a new strategy, share some inspirational reading ahead. If your team is dealing with limiting mindsets, make them do some exercises to start reflecting on what's holding them back.

The team offsite doesn't start the day the session happens. It happens the moment you kick off the planning.

4. Assign a skilled offsite facilitator.

Facilitating an effective team retreat is much more complicated than running a regular meeting. Changing team behavior is not easy; you have to unearth and address tensions.

Having a skilled facilitator in team development will allow you not only to go deep but also to deal with difficult personalities.

I remember running a team retreat for a health care company. Participants were skeptical about the offsite. Their previous experiences were anything but productive. We had to deal with this negative mindset head on. Having some tough conversations helped us put negativity aside and create a transformational session.

If you are dealing with tough issues, a skilled facilitator can also get people to open up. People have a natural tendency to be more open and vulnerable with strangers than with their colleagues.

However, be sure to avoid facilitator dependency. The facilitator should guide the session, but also equip the team with the right tools to continue conversations on their own.

5. Create a safe space during the session.

The quality of a team retreat depends on the quality of the conversations. If people are not candid, then you are wasting everyone's time.

Start by building a safe environment. Make people comfortable to experiment with new behaviors. Facilitation plays a pivotal role in building the space, but it's not enough.

Practice conversational turn-taking; give each person time to share their ideas. The most senior people should always talk last to avoid groupthink.

Go slow to go fast. When facilitating self-reflection exercises, like "Uncover the Stinky Fish," I first ask people to work on their own. Then in pairs. And afterward, in foursomes. Lastly, all findings are shared with everyone.

Progression helps build trust as people get used to opening up, one iteration at a time.

A team offsite is a unique opportunity to address what everybody is thinking yet no one is saying. Building a safe space encourages quality conversations.

6. Focus on the day after the team retreat.

What happens in an offsite shouldn't stay at the offsite.

Finish the session with clear action plans. I use team contracts, where everyone commits to change behavior and also asks something they want the team to provide. Once everyone signs the contract, they hang it in a public wall as a reminder.

Don't just commit to long-term actions. Encourage people to adopt new ways of working right away. I like to use the 1-1-1 formula: People have to commit to new behaviors they will start doing in one week, one month and one quarter. Follow-up is everything. We usually have a video call one week after the session to keep the momentum going. Set regular touch bases to address issues and obstacles.

A team retreat is a springboard; the session itself is the starting point to adopt new ways of working.

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Planning A Team Retreat? Seven Ways To Make Sure It Actually Sticks - Forbes