Once upon a time, leaders of big organisations reckoned it was enough to keep their staff informed on a ‘need to know’ basis. Quarterly email from the CEO? – check. Times have changed.
The idea of the ‘All Hands Meeting’ – often done weekly – emerged from Silicon Valley and was once the preserve of smaller, fast growth companies. Get the staff into a big room and make sure everyone knows what’s going on. Those small companies suddenly got big, but knew that global scale can’t be an excuse for poor communication flows.
In this Quora article, sli.do US Marketing Director Juraj Holub nails the agenda:
- “celebrate people and accomplishments;
- drive alignment around mission, strategy and priorities;
- and finally, provide a forum to ask and answer”
This is incredibly important in a mission-driven organisation, since it drives transparency and gives all staff a strong, up-to-date sense of where they are in the journey. It also shows that the CEO cares enough about staff to invest an hour of his/her precious time on a regular basis. It can be a fabulous symbol of culture change: Aviva launched Aviva #Uncut as part of its purpose-led transformation, in which senior leaders are streamed live on a weekly basis answering any question, ‘from anyone, anywhere about anything’.
Check out the All Hands habits of Google, Warby Parker and Zappos.
For more top tips on All Hands Meetings, read this: Entrepreneur.com.
