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Eight essential tips for a successful townhall event
I love producing townhall events. It’s a little bit like going back to my old job in television, except with an added 20 years of corporate experience.
Fresh off the back of producing the annual townhall for a global client, here is an eight-ball 🎱 of tips to help make your next townhall event a success.
1. Make sure your strategy is well-defined
This is probably an article all in itself, but you really need to have your strategy clear and in place at all times, and especially when you speak to your staff — no matter what the context.
To save you waiting for the piece on strategy, take a look at our white paper on the same subject.
And here are three provocations from me:
- “We want to grow” is not a strategy.
- The strategy should be in in service of your company’s vision and purpose.
- When helping businesses with their strategy, we like to aim for three pillars or priorities. Each pillar will have some enablers, which are the main levers you pull to achieve those priorities. In order to understand how effective you are at pulling those levers, each enabler will have at least one measurement which you should track.
2. Start from the end: What’s the core message?
Before you start any further planning, you should identify the single core message you want your audience to take away from the event.
Don’t be tempted to have more than one core message — because as soon as you go past one you dramatically reduce the chances that your audience will remember them.
The fact is that your own focus will directly sharpen your colleagues’ focus.
Conversely, if you try to expect colleagues to focus on too many things at the same time, by definition they’re likely to be unable to focus on any of them at all.
3. Craft a clear narrative arc
Generally speaking, I think colleagues enjoy the opportunity which townhalls offer to hear from the top leadership about the plans for the company they work for and to put questions to…
