A strategy day that truly delivers results requires three things: an environment that breaks with typical office behavior, a group of no more than 10 people, and deliberate breathing room in the program. If those three are present, everyone drives home with concrete decisions. If one is missing, then they won't.
A strategy day that truly delivers results is not a matter of luck or the right team chemistry. It is a matter of circumstances. If those are good, everyone drives home with concrete decisions and the feeling that the day was worthwhile. If they are not, you know the other feeling as well.
Three factors make the difference. They are all controllable — and they start with your choice of location.
Condition 1: an environment that breaks office behavior
The choice of location is not decorative. It is the first and most decisive choice you make.
The environment drives behavior. An office-like setting activates office behavior: hierarchy, inhibitions, the same patterns as always. People do not say at a strategy day in a meeting room what they would say at home or on the way. They say what they think is expected of them.
Psychologists Kaplan & Kaplan described this in their Attention Restoration Theory: nature lowers cognitive load and restores mental attention. Not because it is beautiful — but because the brain activates involuntary attention in a green environment, allowing the focused attention you need for strategic thinking to recover. A location in the middle of the woods literally does something to how your team thinks. Read more about what nature does to your brain.
“The right environment does part of the work that your facilitator would otherwise do.”
Condition 2: a group of a maximum of 10 people
The optimal group size for a strategic retreat is between 5 and 10 people. Not as a rule of thumb, but as a condition for genuine dialogue.
Group dynamics research is unambiguous here: with more than 8 to 10 people, a group fragments into subgroups. Dominant voices determine the direction. Quiet people disengage. Decisions are postponed because “not everyone has had their say.”.
With a maximum of 10 people, everyone has a voice, non-verbal communication remains clearly legible, and decisions can be made in a single day instead of being postponed. More about the ideal group size for a strategic session.
Condition 3: conscious breathing space in the program
The best off-site retreats have space that is not filled. That sounds counterintuitive — but it is precisely that space where the real conversations take place.
The problem: the real conversations do not take place in the formal session. They take place during coffee. The walk through the forests and fens of Oisterwijk. The moment someone says: “I actually wanted to speak to you for a moment.” You need those moments. And they don't happen if there is no room for them.
Research by cognitive psychologist David Strayer (University of Utah) shows that people demonstrably perform better on creative thinking and problem-solving after a period in nature. The effect does not occur at a desk — it literally requires distance from the daily environment. A break that yields no results does not exist. A program without a break does.
What a strategy day *does* need
- A location that literally stands outside the everyday context — not only geographically, but also visually and in terms of atmosphere.
- Maximum of 10 people — for genuine dialogue and decisive decisions
- Complete privacy — no other guests, no accidental colleagues, no shared spaces
- Breathing space in the schedule — planned breaks, a walk, a moment without an agenda
- One clear final question: what must be decided by the end of the day?
Space for Insight has been consciously designed based on all five of these points. One group per day. Completely private. Direct access to nature. View the facilities and lineups for a complete picture.
The off-site days that really pay off are the days when teams look back and say: “We should have done this much sooner.” That has nothing to do with inspiration. And everything to do with the right conditions.
