[djur]

> I suspect that the author would be fine with the company meeting if...

I can assure you that there is no leadership team competent enough that I would be "fine" with a mandatory four-hour all hands on Monday morning. Not even the bosses I have liked personally could make that worthwhile.

[hackerlight]

Unless there was exceptional reasons for it, it's a surefire way to make your best talent resentful. All these "company retreat" type things are concocted by HR-types justifying their own paycheck. It's anti-leadership.

[travelinmyblood]

I wouldn’t do it on a Monday morning, that’s for sure.

Having worked for a few companies that don’t have the ‘HR types justifying their own paycheck’.. it IS possible to find a positive environment. The one thing they’ve all had in common was a sub-100 head count.

[djur]

It's not about the environment, it's about spending 4 hours listening to executives talk. If there's that much important material to cover, it should be written down.

[travelinmyblood]

I have a roughly 50% win rate on this personally. (When talking about the companies I’ve worked for.)

Some of them horrible, some of them wonderful, some in the middle.