Running an Async All-Hands

A week ago I got to run our weekly all-hands meeting at Close. I tried a new format and got some good feedback, so I thought I’d share.

Instead of a 30-minute Zoom, it was async, with Loom video updates – giving everyone more focused work time.

The biggest hit: positive feedback

Normally we end all-hands with 15 minutes of breakout rooms, randomly pairing people for personal chats. This time, I sent out a Google Form asking everyone to leave positive feedback for 3–6 people in the company.

Google Form titled “Give Positive Feedback”: choose any 3 coworkers and write a line or two – what you admire about them, something they did recently that you appreciate, and why you’re grateful to count them as a teammate The optional “bonus round” page of the form, for up to 3 more coworkers

I wrote a little Node script to transform the Google Sheets results into one consolidated email per recipient. Everyone in the company got at least one message.

(If this were going to be a regular thing, I’d set it up differently and fully automate it.)

It was a big hit! It turns out people like getting positive feedback – and also like reflecting on what they appreciate about their coworkers. A few of the replies I got:

Reply: “Wow, this totally made me tear up… It’s really bonkers how easy it is to forget that people appreciate you – what a wonderful reminder this message is! Thanks for doing this. I appreciate you very much, Phil.”

Slack reply: “Really loved this @philfreo.”

Reply: “I’ll treasure this. Thanks again for this idea.”

Reply: “What on earth is this and where do I send the money?”

This idea was 100% inspired by this tweet from Rodolphe Dutel:

Previous all-hands experiments have included playing with OBS and creating a company news ticker: