Situation

Executive town hall meetings can be engaging events if you borrow lessons learned from broadcast media.

A financial services firm was undergoing a difficult period of change.  Low interest rates resulting from the 2008 financial crisis meant the firm’s traditional operating model no longer generated the same levels of revenue.  The firm was still prospering due to wise leadership and a portfolio of services valued by clients, but with a major source of revenue gone, it needed to align employees with this new reality and identify new lines of business.

The company had a tradition of holding monthly employee town hall meetings.  The format was very formal:

• The Chief Executive Officer and Chief Operating Officer would make remarks
• Another executive or functional leader would then deliver a presentation on a topic of interest to the senior leadership
• Time permitting, the speaker would take questions
• A scheduled Q&A segment received little participation beyond senior leaders, and often was skipped entirely to keep the meeting from running late

Employee attendance at the meetings was very low, hovering between 400 and 500 participants from the two largest U.S. locations.  The meeting was held in the late afternoon, after the close of the market, which discouraged participation from employees in Europe and Asia. Continue Reading →