Building a Culture of Belonging Doesn't Happen When You’re Boring Everyone
I always thought it was crazy that companies were OK with getting every person on a recurring meeting and not caring about the quality of it.
Every single week, wasting a lot of peoples’ time.
Why are companies okay with boring their people?
Every startup generally runs a type of All Hands Meeting, sometimes named Company-Wide Town Hall, All Team Meeting, whatever the name is— it is some form of everyone in the organization gathering for about an hour of synchronous communication.
By the nature of how much time it takes away from everyone’s work week, it's an expensive meeting.
Yet, the startups I have been a part of have run these meetings terribly.
I’d sit there in the audience, doing my best to pay attention, and capture what was being said, while simultaneously waiting for the meeting to be over. I know there was rich content in there, probably useful things for me to know to be a higher contributor of the workplace but the content format would be thoughtless or the presenter was unenthused. It’s usually too much information at once.
Soon enough, they’d lose me and I’d start thinking about what my dinner plans would be later.
At Sprinklr, my first startup, they had this core value: “Fix it, don’t complain.” So I raised my hand and offered to help run these meetings. Mostly so I wouldn’t have to endure the pain of being so bored. As time went on and I joined other companies, I found myself running their meetings from Sales All Hands to Company Town Halls.
I just truly couldn’t stand the All Hands meetings as they were.
As a company, we were doing such cool shit, building awesome products, and helping customers’ lives. When we brought together the people responsible for all these great things, it would be so dry and unorganized. The meeting deck would be a lot of text on terribly formatted slides, rough transitions so they’d lose us between topics, maybe show some graphs, followed by a lowly applause. Then the whole thing is over and we’re back to work.
It didn’t make sense. It felt like a massive missed opportunity. I would share the same thought as the team, “why couldn’t this have just been an email?”
When you’re building an exciting product, where is the excitement in the community?
Physically sitting in the audience to pay attention was painful. Today, many of these meetings are hybrid so as a virtual attendee, when the meeting bores you, you can open other tabs or be on your phone, which I can guarantee is what most of your team is doing.
“Why aren’t they running a tighter ship with this?” I’d think every time. We’d never show up like this in front of a customer. Our employees deserve better.
Here’s the thing– leadership does care about these meetings, it just shows up like they don’t.
This results in the audience not caring because it looks like the presenters don’t care because of how awful it’s run and prepared for.
I’ve been a part of many of these company-wide meeting planning sessions and when I’d ask leadership such as the CRO or CEO, “how do you want the team to feel after the call?” The common responses were, “Motivated to hit target.” “Confident in the company.” “Clear about our new product.”
Every leader I’ve worked with wants their team to leave feeling motivated, confident, clear and overall with positive emotions.
Yet ask yourself - how did you feel after your most recent Company All Hands?
Be real.
Ok, what’s one thing you remember from it?
At a previous startup where I was hired to lead their Sales Enablement strategy, I was about 1 week in, sitting in my first global All Hands and when they finished the call, I turned to my new teammate to ask what he thought.
“Yeah I don’t really find these meetings that relevant to me,” he replied.
If your All Company Meeting isn’t for all the company, then who is it for?
These meetings result in largely benefitting the leadership team way more than the company, which is the audience whose time and attention you’re asking for. Ironic, right?
The meeting is valuable because it is a forcing mechanism for leaders to get more aligned and transparent. When it comes time to organize communications, they’re tasked to get clear on their thoughts and what they want the team to know that week, month, or quarter.
So what exactly happens to get this All Company Meeting together? They gather their thoughts, assemble a decent deck (or I’d do the deck and it’d be great), and if they have the time, maybe they’ve run their messaging by someone, oftentimes they haven’t, and the next morning– boom they’re live with the whole team presenting what feels like to them a clear message.
They’re busy individuals, I know but now in their executive brains with all the decision context and business peripheral information, the message sounds golden. The charts make great sense. The urgency feels like the right amount.
In the audiences’ brains with their sole purpose being to do their job well and they don’t see the larger view, the message lands flat. No one really feels more motivated.
Presenters need to remember to connect the audience to the key message and bring them into the story.
A culture of belonging happens in the communications.
People want to see themselves in the story you’re telling. This is how you connect.
A sales rep doesn’t go to a customer on site without including the customer’s story and path to success in their presentation materials. You make it about them. In an internal all company meeting, you can do this by sharing the stage.
a few simple, effective examples:
when you highlight customer win stories, give the floor to the AE or CSM who’s on the account
when you share product updates, give the floor to the PM or lead engineer who built it and let them share the background of why and how it helps the customer now
when you announce team updates, give the floor to the new teammates or newly promoted and let them share why they joined, what they’re working on now, and something fun, non-work related about them.
There is a lot of space to get creative with these inclusive formats while ensuring high quality.
The best leaders are always selling.
Sales is simply a transfer of enthusiasm.
If you think your team wakes up every morning bought into the mission, you’re wrong. They need reminders and stories that bring them back to the why and how their roles are making an impact. It’s your job as a leader to re-energize them from time to time. These meetings are low-lift opportunities that are available right in your hands.
If you’re hosting an All Company Meeting every week, that is about 48 opportunities every year that you have as a leader to share your enthusiasm, motivate your people, and build a culture of belonging.
If you’re hosting an All Company Meeting every month, that is about 12 opportunities. Less opportunities = far more important you nail this time you have your people gathered like that together.
Quarterly All Company Meetings should be a whole show for your people.
You’re sleeping on a massive (and efficient) opportunity to bring your people closer and build a strong culture of belonging.
Communities are built on consistently recurring rituals. Your recurring All Company Meeting is that ritual. If you take these meetings seriously, your team will look forward to them because they will be conditioned to get their dose of connection, motivation, and clarity each time they attend.
I feel passionate about this because I love all company meetings and I want them to be better.