How I keep my whole company in the loop in 10 minutes

Townhall meetings. Ask-me-anything sessions. The old-fashioned suggestion box.

When it comes to opening lines of communications with employees, there are lots of options out there for CEOs. The challenge is that they each come with limitations and demands.

When we were small (i.e. pizza-size), communication was easy: If I needed to share news, I just stood up and made an announcement. As we got bigger, growing to hundreds of employees, we started doing town halls, inviting everyone to attend a once-a-quarter meeting.

But these were challenging to plan and too infrequent. And with so many people in attendance, not everyone could participate.

I felt like people needed to be able to send me questions more regularly, so I started an anonymous email suggestion box. As Hootsuite grew to nearly 1,000 employees, suggestions and questions came in faster and faster. I just couldn’t close the loop in time, and important issues went unaddressed.

On the hunt for a no-hassle company meeting tool

It was with these limitations in mind that I started searching recently for a better way to connect everyone. Incidentally, I had also just received feedback in a company-wide survey that I wasn’t accessible enough on a day-to-day basis.

As CEO of Hootsuite, a social media company – which prides itself on open communication – this was a concern.

My priorities were pretty straightforward.

I needed a way to interact each week with every member of my company, around the world.

The time commitment on my side needed to be minimal: I couldn’t afford to spend hours prepping updates. I wanted a way to share breaking company news, solicit and respond to feedback and provide transparency into the business.

Finally, this had to be something I could do from anywhere, since my schedule often requires travel.

This sounds like it should be relatively easy, but it’s actually not.

I first considered a weekly newsletter, but it felt so 2000 – impersonal and old-fashioned.

Minimal prep and zero production value

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