This summer, The Wall Street Journal and other news outlets reported on a lawsuit brought against Netflix by a vice president at the company who was fired after revealing that he had taken ketamine to treat depression.
Kevin Baillie, the dismissed Netflix executive, said he spoke about his ketamine use following an exercise that was designed to embrace vulnerability and increase trust. Baillie, who was fired two months after the January 2026 retreat, filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against his former employer.
In April, the Journal reported on a tech company’s retreat in Honduras that featured extreme team-building challenges like eating tarantulas and grueling morning drills on the beach led by a former Navy SEAL. One participant landed on top of a fire ant hill and ended up needing medical treatment.
Two very different experiences, one seemingly obvious but apparently necessary reminder about planning executive retreat agendas: use common sense.
“I don’t love forced activities like scavenger hunts with teams,” said Ben Choder, a newly appointed CEO at Submittable, a provider of software for entities that award grants and scholarships. “I think it’s more effective to have teams work on real projects that may become part of your company’s strategy moving forward.”
Know Your Reason for Meeting
Leadership development retreats should be about developing leadership. Too often, planners of executive retreats are too cute by half when shaping an agenda. Many business leaders we spoke with for this report stated that agendas often go sideways when a company fails to identify sound and specific reasons for having the retreat in the first place.
“I build the agenda around three outputs: the few bets we will make, what we will stop, and who owns the next decision,” said Todd Saunders, founder and CEO of Dalton Mills, provider of an AI operating system for commercial and residential trades. “A motivational element helps only when it reconnects a difficult operating decision to the company mission. If people leave with inspiration but no changed calendar, budget or owner, the retreat failed.”
It’s wise to remain on the lookout for agenda-shaping ideas as you consume content on business leadership. For example, a 2025 Harvard Business Review cover story on courageous leadership provides enough fodder for a full afternoon of agenda topics. In that article, Ranjay Gulati, a Harvard Business School professor and author of “How to Be Bold: The Surprising Science of Everyday Courage,” shared that research with his colleagues revealed that effective leaders develop courage in five ways: They create positive narratives, cultivate confidence, take small steps to boost their comprehension of the challenges they face, make connections, and stay calm.
Imagine workshopping any one of those characteristics of above-and-beyond leadership. Cultivating confidence, for example, includes focusing on what’s in your control, Gulati states. A roomful of C-level leaders could benefit greatly from looking at real-life challenges – past or present – and honestly assessing where each individual can have an impact.
“In the world of sports, this strategy is often described as focusing on process, not outcomes,” Gulati writes. “As the legendary college football coach Nick Saban used to tell his players, ‘We’re not going to talk about what we’re going to accomplish, we’re going to talk about how we’re going to do it.’
“As the pace of change and disruption accelerates, courage – or the lack of it – can make or break careers, organizations and society,” Gulati states. “I’ve come away from my hundreds of interviews with executives, entrepreneurs, employees, coaches and more convinced that bravery is a skill that everyone in business today must learn and teach to others. A bit more boldness will go a long way.”
This article is from a report on the new look of executive retreats. See the rest of the report here.
