What works: Collaborative Company Meetings

We have company meetings every 4-6 weeks. Everyone attends. The schedule's less important as we all meet and collaborate together each week in person and through the basecamp wiki from 37signals.

I've attended some of the same meetings you've attended: a speech by the CEO to the common folk, some bad food, maybe some meaningless powerpoint slides and fodder....a new campaign by marketing (doomed to failure as no one else contributed to it), some HR policies passed around...and the announcement of a new hire that no one will ever hear from afterwards.

We don't do that.  We have collaborative company meetings. That means I talk no more than everyone else.

Why?

The less I talk, the more everyone else participates. And the more everyone participates, the more engaged everyone becomes with each other, our company, and our customers.

The challenge at the beginning was how to incite, inspire, cajole, allow, even expect more participation and collaboration in the meetings. It's a different approach for everyone, me included. We had to learn as we went.

Here's the agenda we've developed over time to allow for content, ideas, participation, fun, some surprises, inspiration and serious discussion for solutions.

First 15 Minutes: Treats and greets. We're lucky to have everyone. But for this section of the minute we're lucky to have a former professional caterer. Many meetings she whips up a treat with ingredients from her garden and napkins and silverware. Othertimes, I or others bring pastries in from around town. Sets the tone.

2nd 15 Minutes: Company snitches. It's an opportunity for anyone, usually everyone, to snitch on their colleagues for some great accomplishment, achievement, success, etc. Usually, it starts slow, then builds to a frenzy as one snitch leads to another. It furthers the tone set above. Keeps us focused on finding solutions, praising each other's work, looking at what's important: accomplishments to build on and use to inspire.

3rd 15 Minutes: A thought-starter question, a challenge for the month. We used a thought-starter question this month: "If you were to compete against us, what would you do and how would you do it?" Great ideas came from everyone's input.

4th 15 Minutes: New element: a presentation by one person. We're a communications company. We're dependent on creativity and innovation and flexibility and the ability to communicate such. That means we need to constantly improve our skills at conceptualizing, organizing ideas, laying them out sequentially, communicating them quickly to others. We also need to inspire more confidence in initiative taking. So....I asked that each week one person, chosen randomly, would take 10-15 minutes to present on any topic of their choosing, using any media or not of their choosing.

This first presentation was on how to create picture perfect filo dough pastries....YESSIR! A great way to start the meeting.

Last 15 minutes: what else? What else can we do? Issues, challenges, unhappiness, vendors, partners, needs, vacations. This week we spent a bit of time talking about first some new collaboration technologies on our doorstep and finished laughing from stories of our pets.

It works. I get to listen and improve on those skills. Others get to speak and improve on those skills. We connect with stories and laughter and inspiration from everyone.

Preparation. I prepare the agenda and share it with everyone prior to the meeting using Basecamp. That way...there's opportunity for everyone to think, comment, question, suggest and be prepared when we meet in person.

Collaborative Company Meetings...they work.