Calling all your people together is a powerful intervention. I recommend approaching it from a design perspective. Think of it as an event as opposed to a meeting. Design it well and make a real statement about the company, the leadership, and the employees.
Here are a few ideas that will help you to design a great All-Hands meeting:
Get the Whole System in the Room (or as much of it as you can)
These days it’s much easier to have large conversations. Use groupware to transcend time and place. You want a large face-to-face presence, and you can get remote sites into the conversation as well. When we facilitated sessions for East Coast CIGNA, we held them in the early morning and invited their Scotland office to participate. It was noon for Scotland and early AM for headquarters in Wilmington. We had lunch together after the morning meeting in Delaware, and Scotland had drinks and dinner after theirs. Everyone loved the experience.
Use Round Tables
We like round tables that sit no more than six. Seat people randomly so that they can meet others. As a leader you are designing norms of behavior. You want people to feel safe and included. Six is a great number for cafe style conversations. If you are using groupware and decide at some point your want to record the collective voice, you can start the conversation at the table groups, and pass the critical contributions through the groupware for all to see. You need only one collection device and someone to manage it for each table. Instantly you can tap into the group mind, get everyone involved. You can also do this manually using small tabletop flip charts. Have the table pick a spokesperson.
Create Fast Feedback Cycles
Keep the presentations short. Make sure your presenters rehearse. They need to be crisp, enthusiastic, and high energy. Have them ask for feedback. Use the table groups as above. A quick way to get a lot of useful data is to prompt the table groups to converse about the presentation capturing “highlights” – what stood out for them. Then ask for any concerns they might have. End with asking for any additional questions. Keep the whole experience to 20 minutes or less. Repeat with another speaker. Do two and take a break.
Use a Theme Team
Before the meeting create a “Theme Team” consisting of a cross section of the group. No more than six. Their job is to create summaries of the data collected from the group during the feedback portions of the meeting. They are a consensus seeking team. They present back to the whole group short summaries of the information to the large group. If you have high potentials that you want to see in action, appoint them to the theme team. The ability to organize information, reach consensus, and present information back, candidly, with a bit of polish, energy, and humor is a complex skill. There is no better way to develop this skill.
What’s Next?
These are a few ideas. If you’d like to get better at helping leaders to hold killer All-Hands meetings, ask to join our guild. This work is a craft. It’s both an art and a science. You will need to practice, you will need to take risks, and you will need feedback. Our guild provides all of these. Most of all it’s fun! Of course you could always ask me to come and help you design your next large conversation. We will work side by side and you will learn first hand.