Communicate Your Vision: This is What You Should Be Doing in Your Quarterly Meetings

In the early days of a startup, when the team is all working in the same space or connecting with each other virtually many times a day, we are always invigorated by the ideas and the drive to produce something exemplary.

Communicating and connecting with the vision is relatively easy then. We’d live it and breathe it every day. 

Things get a little bigger, and we post our vision on the wall in the entryway in big block letters. Bigger still, and we post our values. Then we take it all virtual, and we put a “visions and values” document on our company dashboard in the cloud.  

We start to suspect that some members of our team don’t really know (or care) what our vision is. 

Now what?  

Frequent touch points used to be an inescapable part of our operations. Now we have to create them intentionally to reinforce our vision and what our values are. It’s the biggest reason to meet as a whole company more frequently, rather than less. 

See: Is Your Company Culture Undermining Your Success?

The need for the quarterly meeting

It happens at some point in most companies. There are people who don’t understand (or perhaps don’t remember why) they write the code they write or answer the phones they answer. They get focused on their goals and what their manager asks them to do, and they lose sight of the bigger picture of the company. 

As much as some employees may wish it weren’t, connecting to that bigger picture is critical for every team member’s success. Here’s why: 

First, your vision is the head of the beast — it leads to your mission, which leads to your goals, which lead to your strategy, which leads to your plan. You need team members who are looking at the whole forest and not just the trees. That way, if they see something that’s not in line with where the company is headed, they can address it. 

Second, we know that when people understand their purpose, they experience greater satisfaction and deeper engagement. If you want a satisfied employee you can retain, they must know why they matter. 

Finally, employees see you and your leadership team taking accountability, and that means something to them. With quarterly meetings, you as a leader have to provide consistency and clarity. You can’t be all over the place, chasing the next shiny object. You have to get up each quarter and stick to the vision and the values you touted last quarter. 

See: Results Aren’t Achieved When Values Don’t Align

How to make the most of a quarterly meeting

Getting a quarterly meeting right isn’t always easy. I’ve had clients who’ve received negative feedback. Employees weren’t engaged. 

You get better at them by taking that feedback, being conscientious, and making quarterly meetings a habit. 

Here’s what you should include. 

First things first: a quarterly meeting should start off with messages from the top. One of the main benefits of regular meetings is the consistent communication, so this is an opportunity to present it to the whole team at the same time. This is an opportunity for the CEO and members of the leadership team to talk about the company’s vision and high-level performance (results), maybe revisit milestones.

Presentations from leaders in other departments can be particularly helpful for employees that feel siloed or have trouble understanding the perspectives of other teams. 

The engineer sees that we’re more than just a product company. We have to sell the product. We have to service the product. Or a services company sees that we also have to recruit new people. Employees begin to think about the processes they’re not directly involved in. 

Plus, leadership presentations show alignment at the top. A quarterly meeting is not the time for anyone on your leadership team to go sideways, so make sure you’re orchestrating just as much as is necessary. 

Second, it’s time to recognize behavior in alignment with values. This is one of the key opportunities to reinforce values by recognizing when we’ve observed people adhering to the shared core values.  

Reinforcement can be in the form of pins, stars, applause from the crowd, bonuses — whatever structure you’ve created in your organization. Remember that recognition doesn’t always have to come from the top. Peer recognition can be very powerful. 

The final formal piece of the meeting is kicking off the next quarter. 

Then you can’t send everyone away without doing something fun. Quarterly meetings give peers a chance to get to know each other better. Some organizations even have employees give presentations on their projects or areas of interest as part of the formal meeting. Or maybe play a game. Anything that creates greater opportunities to deepen our connections.

Ask yourself what you can set up that will allow everyone to get to know one another better. If you’re all local, have lunch together or do a charity project. If you’re remote, you could order lunch for everyone at their homes through something like Ubereats and have break-out rooms for informal chatting. 

See: How to Develop (and Implement) Your Core Values

Final thoughts

Sometimes you’ll see resistance to quarterly meetings, especially if you haven’t been doing them already. Sometimes it may be warranted — perhaps the meetings are too dry. Listen carefully to feedback, and decide whether there are things you can do to increase engagement and interest. 

Of course, sometimes resistance isn’t about the meetings themselves. It’s about the employee, and it can be a red flag about their alignment with your vision and mission. For instance, if you’re seeing this attitude: Just email me the information or let me click on the dashboard. I don’t need to hear this. I have too many other important things to do. Just let me do my job.

In previous roles, I’ve had my own employees say all-hands meetings weren’t for them, that they didn’t need to know what other people were doing. They unwittingly did me a favor — helped me smoke out the people who weren’t team and company players. 

As your organization grows, expands, and perhaps becomes entirely virtual, you’re having to find more ways to create those frequent touchpoints. Quarterly meetings are an excellent tool for communicating your vision and ensuring alignment on your team. 

We work with leaders to define and disseminate their vision, including through planning and implementing quarterly meetings. Reach out to see how we can help you.