How to Break Silos Using LexGo for Team All Hands
We see a number of teams coming together regularly in LexGo to build team connections while sharing updates. Call it an all hands, town hall or team meeting - the goal is to help team members connect with each other and the broader team. Below you’ll find examples and practices that have worked well for those teams.
Why an all hands in LexGo?
Talking at your team in a video call while they ‘multitask’ and aren’t really present isn’t engaging. The key difference in the experience from a video call is that everyone starts at smaller tables and immediately engages with co-workers, rather than waiting to be pushed into breakout rooms later. The all hands is a quick, active participation event to get people talking with each other.
A LexGo event floor is a simple way to bring the group together and allow them to easily move around and even step in front of the group to share or ask questions.
Before the All Hands
1. Set expectations
Share with the team that the event is going to be active participation and start with connecting with team mates. Make it clear that it’s not a time for ‘multitasking’ but to be present for this brief time focused on connecting with each other. Then share the LexGo link in a calendar invitation so it’s easy to find when it’s all hands time.
2. Pick a mixer question
A great way to get your team mixing and connecting with new people is a ‘mixer question’. Pick a question with a set of fixed answers and rename the audience tables in your auditorium with those answers. This will mix up your audience and give them something to talk about getting started.
For more on using mixer questions in LexGo, here’s a list of 10 mixer questions to help get you started.
3. Rename the Front of Room with the question
A great way to share the question is to just rename the Front of Room in a LexGo event floor with the question. Click on the Go to the front of the room and use the 3 dot menu on the upper right to ‘Edit room name’.
4. Make the agenda fit the interactive format
Keep the content to things best shared (and reacted to) live, not something that should just be an email — this may mean a leadership summary of why a new recruiting referral program matters, but not necessarily every detail of the process.
A different flow each time gives variety and keeps the team engaged so pick different ‘quick update’ elements to mix it up:
- Leadership Updates - KPI or meaningful measures the team should know about, summary of email or slack with details of something new (HR, IT, process or otherwise)
- People - depending on team size, ask new hires to join on the stage and introduce themselves for 30 seconds
- Celebrations - Wins - Highlight people & teams with recent wins (sales, projects) - have those people (very briefly) share the success story from the stage. The goal is to get more people into the spotlight than just the leaders seen each week
- Celebrations - Dates - Birthdays, service anniversaries
- Demo - share work progress from across the company (not just a new product but advertising designs, new process flows, or any innovation that helps cross pollenate what different members of the team do in support of the whole). A single 5 min demo is usually best.
- Q&A - ask participants to jump to the front if they have a question to ask about any of the content by tapping their ‘Jump to Front’ button. There will usually be a couple people who will ask the question on the minds of others in the group.
- Lightning Presentation - TED talk style 9 minute engaging presentation. Ideally something rehearsed and engaging, not death by Powerpoint which clearly answers two questions:
- What do you want the audience to feel?
- What 1 thing do you want them to take away?
- Share, Process & Read out- to help the team internalize key information, share a key topic or update with the group and then ask them to work through specific brainstorming work as a team. What does this information mean to you? What are you going to do with it? Have someone from each table jump to the front and share their tables insights and outcomes with the broader group.
Running the All Hands
- Open doors 10 minutes early — let people know it’s ok to come in early and chat
- Give the team a few minutes to discuss the mixer question, get to know each other better and strengthen relationships
- Rotate through the agenda items with different team members jumping to the front and back to their tables for their sections or for more free form Q&A.
- A leader acts as the emcee for the day and possibly rotate that responsibility through different leaders over time. This both exposes them all to the broader team and can be a part of their professional development.
- More people in front of the group means getting to know a broader part of the team
- Emphasize that the venue is still open for anyone who wants to stick around afterwards and socialize with people they don’t see every day
