BY MEL DUNN

The entire ‘Cove Crew recently gathered for our annual all-hands meeting. As the name suggests, all our local and remote employees gathered in person at our Boston-area office for two full days. Planning about 22 hours’ worth of togetherness for 17 people involves a lot of moving pieces. And over the years, we’ve learned what flies and what flops at this type of event.

When we reflected on this particular go-round, we felt good about how it went, and there was data to prove that it was successful (more on collecting feedback later). We decided it would be beneficial for future events that we document what made this meeting work so well for us. We also wanted to share some tips for those of you who are involved in planning or attending an all-hands meeting of your own. We’re usually all for sharing recipes. But we also know that every team and organization is unique. So, here we present you with our main ingredients for hosting an all-hands meeting. You can tweak the measurements and adjust the flavor to your organization’s palate.

• Pick a point person. Too many chefs in the kitchen never ends well, and the same is true for an all-hands meeting. Choose your head chef. This person doesn’t have to be responsible for planning and executing every detail, but rather should act as your single source of truth at all times. Then, assign sous chefs as needed. This year, we spread that work across a few individuals who were involved behind the scenes to make sure everything was made to order.

• Choose a purpose and theme. Getting our whole team in one physical location is enough of a reason to host an all-hands meeting. But we’ve learned that defining a meeting purpose (what do we want to get out of this?) and a theme (what topics and activities will help us meet our objective?) not only helps those involved in the planning but also gets the whole team on the same page. This time, our all-hands meeting was crafted around a “Creating Connections” theme that inspired sessions about building a deeper sense of self, fostering relationships, and improving communication skills, along with time dedicated for connecting with one another. 

• Be intentional. When your team gathers only once or twice a year, ideally you want everyone to show up as their best selves and leave feeling inspired. To set ourselves up for success, we used one of our team calls prior to the meeting to think individually about what we wanted to get out of the meeting and how we’d prepare, whether that was mentally, emotionally, or physically. Just 15 to 30 minutes of mindfulness helped us get in the right frame of mind and align to the objective.

• Share an agenda. Give people generous advance notice of the event dates, especially if they need to travel by plane, train, or ferry (yes, our rockstar team did it all) and shift their work and personal schedules for a few days. Once the agenda and purpose are set in stone, share them with the full team. Being transparent about what people can expect may help reduce anxiety and proactively answer employees’ questions (what should I wear, will they feed us breakfast, is there prep work, etc.).

  • Schedule breaks. While you’re thinking through the agenda, don’t forget to account for down time. Most people aren’t used to exerting social energy or soaking up information for eight-plus hours. Providing scheduled time for coffee, a quick walk, or simply some quiet time alone can reenergize your team so that they’re ready for whatever’s next.

• Give clients (or partners) a heads-up. It can be tricky for our business to “close” for two days when our clients’ businesses are open. But to achieve our goals for the meeting, it was essential for our team to be fully present and focused. So, we notified our clients that we’d be offline, and they worked with us to adjust deadlines and move meetings. We’re lucky to partner with supportive clients who understand the importance of this time together. Sure, a couple of time-critical things came up during the meeting that we handled during breaks, but otherwise we were able to enjoy stress-free time together.  

• Alternate session formats. Most of us can recall a meeting or conference with back-to-back speakers or too many team-building activities. Each scenario is draining in its own way. We recommend mixing up the format of your sessions. This may differ based on your meeting purpose, but it could be a combination of icebreakers, presenter-led slides, group brainstorms, Q&As, and social events. More importantly, choose formats that are most beneficial to do in person. We invited outside perspectives to lead professional development sessions, we ran group brainstorms, we participated in workshops, and to the next point, we let our hair down.

• Have fun. Whenever our crew gets together there are guaranteed laughs and sharing of dad jokes. But it’s nice to have time penciled in specifically for fun activities. Getting to know one another in social, low-stress environments helps people open up, which is an excellent way to make and strengthen connections. In the past, we’ve done a citywide scavenger hunt, played Ping-Pong, and carved pumpkins. This year we had the best excuse to throw a party: celebrating 10 years of Hencove!

• Collect feedback. When it’s still fresh in everyone’s minds, send out an anonymous survey to gather honest feedback about the meeting. Knowledge is power, and this will help you learn how other people think the meeting went, which sessions they valued most, and where there’s room for improvement. While our survey said this was our “most successful meeting yet,” in truth it wasn’t perfect, and now we know what to tweak, omit, or add to our next annual all-hands meeting (only like 350 more days!). 

• Keep the momentum going. It’s normal to feel extra-motivated and ready to apply what you learned directly following an event like this. But it’s also natural for the momentum to slowly die down as you get back to the day-to-day tasks. At a minimum, each employee should take time to reflect on something new they learned about themselves and their colleagues—a full-circle “Be Intentional” moment, if you will. As a team, commit to revisiting some of the ideas and concerns that came up during the meeting or in a brainstorm. When so much effort and energy go into hosting an all-hands meeting, it’s important to follow through.

We have found that what you do before, during, and after an all-hands meeting is key to its success. While our all-hands agenda, purpose, or theme may not apply to your organization, we’re confident that these ingredients directly contributed to making our time together worthwhile, and they could work for you. While we’re sharing, what have you done differently for your team meetings? We’d love to hear from you!