Monthly Five-Minute CEO Updates

Ever heard of the tele­phone game? That’s when one per­son says some­thing to some­one who says it to anoth­er and so on down the line. In the end, the last mes­sage deliv­ered is rad­i­cal­ly dif­fer­ent to the original.

That’s what hap­pens when a CEO has a dis­cus­sion with exec­u­tives who talk to direc­tors, who talk to man­agers, who talk to team leads, who talk to team members.

The only way for a CEO to be clear is to deliv­er the mes­sage, direct­ly and reg­u­lar­ly, at least once a month.

The Val­ue of CEO Updates

And peo­ple want to hear what you have to say because CEO updates:

• Fill a com­mu­ni­ca­tion gap in the organization.
• Align the team to com­pa­ny around objec­tives, per­for­mance and priorities.
• Build cul­ture and pride.
• Are part of the CEOs ambas­sado­r­i­al role.
• Are a great way to round out a week.

Updates are also a good idea for lead­ers of large teams.

When I start­ed a career in adver­tis­ing in the 90s, I met a won­der­ful gen­tle­man called Peter Legge who start­ed Cana­da Wide Mag­a­zines, which was big in the print mag­a­zine space. His updates, many times a month, were a pow­er­ful lead­er­ship mech­a­nism to get his peo­ple in sync and to con­tin­u­al­ly let them know what was going on. He inspired me to do the same when I start­ed my practice.

Here are some tips:

Be con­sis­tent

These sim­ple updates need to be deliv­ered con­sis­tent­ly. How – an email, in per­son or video – and how often depends on what works best for your orga­ni­za­tion. But it’s impor­tant to estab­lish a con­sis­tent rhythm, just like your dai­ly, week­ly, month­ly, quar­ter­ly and annu­al meet­ings. Once a month is a good baseline.

Keep it short

CEO updates should only take five or ten min­utes to write and no more than five min­utes to read. Short, sharp and simple.

Give peo­ple some­thing to feel proud about — to be on the team and with what’s hap­pen­ing — and some­thing to look for­ward to.

Choose an inter­est­ing title to stand out from oth­er communications/​emails and include:

• Com­pa­ny news
• A cou­ple of key met­rics that relate to your most impor­tant com­pa­ny goals
• Progress on the com­pa­ny goals
• Acknowledgement/​shout out of recent successes
• A cou­ple things that are hap­pen­ing next week
• A sto­ry that exem­pli­fies one of the com­pa­ny values.

Make it rel­e­vant to every­one in the com­pa­ny and keep ground­ing peo­ple in what mat­ters most in your culture.

Note: Use infor­ma­tion that you know. And if you don’t know what to include, it may be a flag that you are out of touch and not con­nect­ed enough to the business.

Make some­one else accountable

Ask some­one on your team to make it happen.

This per­son can set a time to meet with you to gath­er key points, draft or help you write it (if nec­es­sary), and send it out.

The Chal­lenge

• In what rhythm do you want to cre­ate to com­mu­ni­cate to every per­son in your company?
• When are you going to start?
• Find some­one on your team to sup­port you to get it done.

Want to hear more? Lis­ten to Episode 95 of The Growth Whisperers.

Lawrence & Co’s work focus­es on sus­tain­able and enhanced growth for you and your busi­ness. Our diverse and expe­ri­enced group of advi­sors can help your lead­ers and exec­u­tive teams stay com­pet­i­tive through the use of var­i­ous learn­ing tools includ­ing work­shops, webi­na­rs, exec­u­tive retreats, or one-to-one coaching.

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