Emma: I feel about recurring team meetings the way I feel about eating breakfast: I agree it’s important, but I never seem to have much of an appetite.
Andy: It’s hard to drum up an appetite when breakfast is bland. A lot of “standing syncs” exist to relay information. They’re a 20-minute announcement dump of process changes, performance numbers, status updates, what’s coming down the pipe. The motto seems to be: I need us all to be on the same page, and I don’t trust email to get us there.
Emma: And they are so frequent! Weekly, sometimes twice-weekly. Breakfast again!? And if my team isn’t particularly hungry for the announcements I have to give, I’m standing there at the front of the room force feeding them oatmeal.
Andy: No one is having fun in that moment. Which isn’t to say meetings need to be “fun.” Announcements will always need to be shared, and all-team meetings will always be a place to share them. They’re how we humanize a memo’s worth of bullet points — plus people need to hear stuff multiple times in a variety of formats before it really sinks in. There’s no need to invent a better channel for information distribution.
Emma: At the same time, I want to run great meetings, and nothing cranks up the pressure like 20 zoned-out stares as I remind everyone to finish their 360 reviews by EOD Friday.
Andy: (Which, yeah, if you’re in the audience, I recommend some supportive meeting moves: A little engaged eye contact and some nodding go a long way. Taking notes achieves a similar effect.)
Emma: My instinct in the face of glassy eyes is often to get really big and animated. Maybe if I’m tap dancing while dishing up oatmeal, people will want seconds! Or, I’ll try griping to get people on my side. I’m as bored as you are — cut me some slack!
Mileage on both varies.
Andy: It’s so tempting to bedazzle the oatmeal. But instead of adding flair to your delivery, we recommend adding substance to your content. This is especially effective when your announcements are regurgitating what’s been said before. Do them one better: say something new on top of it.
Emma: Unfortunately, it’s hard to wing substance. All good meetings take prep work, and prep work takes time, and we never feel like we have enough of it. But your team is too smart to listen to information they’ve already heard. Making the same-old announcements better shows you’re a boss who knows that.
2 Ways to Add Substance to an Announcement Dump
1. Describe your own experience
If you’ve done it before, you have information to add. Think Johnny Weir commenting on figure skating at the Olympics — he knows what’s up and now so do you. Set expectations for the experience. Provide context to how long something takes. Explain what’s hard or easy or fun. Bonus Good Boss move: Proactively remove obstacles for the stuff you know is going to require troubleshooting.
Original announcement: All 360 reviews are due on Friday. Please turn them in on time.
Better announcement: All 360 reviews are due on Friday. A word of warning about this: it took me a lot longer than I thought it would. There are 20 questions for each 360, and it took me about an hour to get through one review. Also, the system times out on you after 30 minutes, so I recommend drafting your answers in a Google doc. I’ve collected all the questions in a template I’ll send out to the team right after this meeting.
And because it takes so long, be judicious in how many you agree to — I recommend only saying yes to one or two. Three max. Has anyone here committed to more than three? Hang back after this meeting if you want help figuring out who to drop. No one be offended if someone tells you they can’t do your review anymore! I made them draw the line to save their sanity.
Note: This style of announcement beef-up still works even if you haven’t personally participated in whatever you’re announcing, but you know someone who has. Ask them for the intel first, or see if they’re available to guest star at your next team meeting.
2. Go to the source
Someone has context for what’s going on; you’re going to find them. And when you do, you’ll ask them: What are other teams asking? What problems are people running into? Where did this announcement come from? Why? You can also look outside your company for context clues: Is this a larger trend?
Original announcement: Please do not eat or drink in the stairwells.
Better announcement: As you guys know, there’s a new No Food in the Stairwells policy. It sounds pretty elementary school, but when I talked to facilities, they said it dropped our insurance premium by — I kid you not — $1 million.
To make up for the inconvenience, trash cans and recycling bins are being installed right outside the staircase doors this week, and they’re going to add a coffee station there, too. So, if you’re going to a meeting on another floor, wait until you get there to get your coffee. Bonus tip: I’ve spotted blueberry fizzy water on Floor 3 and granola bars on Floor 5.
