Deadly spin #3 - Everyone would love to have breakfast or coffee with you.

Should leaders get together with employees over bacon, eggs and coffee? I rolled out breakfast meetings at two organizations. I tried to make it a three-peat but my current boss shot down the idea and coming up with a far better alternative.

Here's my third deadly spin of leadership communications.

What PR pros say:

You’re in your element and at your best when you’re having informal conversations with employees one-on-one or in small groups.

So let’s have you meet every month with around a dozen employees. We’ll invite a different group each time. One month, you’ll meet with new hires (it’s sure to be the highlight of their onboarding experience). The next month, it’ll be award winners (a great way for you to congratulate them in person) or frontline supervisors (the key communicators for employees, next to you of course) or the informal opinion leaders who everyone knows, respects and trusts (and who think you’re doing an absolutely bang-up job as leader BTW).

These breakfasts won’t have formal agendas, PowerPoint decks or even talking points. You’ll just strike up a conversation with everyone around the table. It’ll be just like family get-togethers, minus the drama.

We can structure the meetings one of three ways – it’s your call.

You can run the meetings like a focus group and ask open-ended questions. What’s the one thing you enjoy most about your job? What’s the one thing you’d change? Why did you choose to work here? How would you explain our culture to someone who knows nothing about our organization?

You can run the meetings like a media scrum, inviting the group to ask you questions. They can ask about anything and everything but just not the winning numbers for Friday’s LottoMax draw (you can make that disclaimer at the start of the meeting to break the ice and show everyone you have a sense of humour). What’s on their minds? What’s the one thing they’ve always wanted to know? What have they always wondered about but were too afraid to ask? Reassure everyone there’s no such thing as a dumb question.

You can also use the breakfasts to float trial balloons. You can preview an idea you’re mulling over or an initiative that you’re about to launch. Ask the group for their unfiltered feedback. And when you launch the initiative, you can say that you consulted with, listened to and acted on the advice of frontline employees.

Regardless of what you do during the breakfast, employees will be excited to spend some quality time with you. They’ll take that excitement back to their teams and departments. They’ll sing your praises to their colleagues. They’ll tell everyone that you’re a gracious host, good at small talk, funny, smart, quick on your feet and a good listener. You’re someone that anyone would want to get to know over a cup of coffee.

Our PR team will take care of everything. We’ll figure out who to have at the table and draft invitations for your EA to send out on your behalf. We’ll book the room and order the food. And of course, we’ll sit in on the breakfasts to capture the conversations and note what needs to be followed up.

What employees think:

You’ll be sitting down to breakfast with three groups of employees.

Some – if not most – of us will dread being there, especially the introverts. We’ll be wondering why we were invited. After all, there’s no such thing as a free dinner, breakfast or cup of coffee. There’s always an agenda at play.

We only accepted your invitation because it seemed like a command performance. Our hope is that we get through the breakfast by saying nothing at all, or at least saying nothing that won’t embarrass ourselves in front of you and our colleagues. So don’t expect us to be honest. Why did we choose to join the organization? We won’t to tell you that we’re here because we’d been out of work for eight months, drained our life savings, maxed out our credit cards and failed to get so much as a rejection letter from the 40 other organizations we applied to. And what’s the one thing we’d change to improve our jobs? We’re not going to ask you to fire our clueless, lazy, demotivating and casually cruel supervisor. Instead, we’ll float the idea of a recognition program that doles out certificates and gift cards and a special breakfast just like this for award winners.

While some of us will stay silent and reveal little or nothing at all, some of us will jump at the opportunity to ingratiate ourselves with you. We’ll talk a lot but say nothing that’s important, insightful or remotely interesting. We’ll overshare with too much personal information in the mistaken belief that everything we say during the breakfast stays in the room. We’ll shamelessly amp up our enthusiasm for working here and having you as our fearless leader. What’s the one thing we’d change with our job? Absolutely nothing because everything is awesome! Maybe we’ll try to break the habit of pinching ourselves every day on the way to work to see if this awesome experience isn’t just some wonderful dream.

And one of us will use the breakfast to cut our supervisor off at the knees. We have a big, bold and brilliant idea that we’re super excited about. Our supervisor does not share our excitement. She’s repeatedly shot down our idea. First, it was “not now” and “maybe someday” but now it’s a firm “no” and “we’re never doing that so quit pushing your idea and pestering me”. Apparently, we have other priorities to focus on, even if they’re nowhere near as big, bold and brilliant as our idea. During the breakfast, you’ll ask for ways to make our organization an even better place to work. The silence will be deafening as everyone stares at the food on the plates. It’ll get awkward. Someone will suggest switching to four-ply toilet paper in the staff washrooms or replacing the air dryers with paper towel dispeners. You’ll be relieved and eternally grateful when we save the day and pitch our big, bold and brilliant idea. You’ll say our idea sounds outstanding. It’s so big, so bold, so brilliant. We should definitely look into making your idea a reality right away. The PR person at the table will take notes and get our contact info. You’ll talk about our idea during your next meeting with senior leaders. And when we go back to our team or department after breakfast, we’ll tell our supervisor that you’ve blessed our big, bold and brilliant idea and you personally want to see it implemented ASAP. Sure, you’ve lost the respect of our supervisor but you’ve won us over.

What you can do instead:

Ditch the coffee, sausage links and powdered eggs. Instead of having employees come to you, go to them by joining meetings already in progress.

Send an email to managers and supervisors, offering to drop in their regularly scheduled weekly, monthly and quarterly meetings. Make sure those managers and supervisors are in the room, so no one tries to pull an end run.

Instead of talking the whole time during your visit, just listen. Be an observer. Don’t play the part of the all-knowing wonderful wizard of Oz, with the answers to any and all questions that employees may have.

Be a good guest. Give your undivided attention during the entire meeting. Turn your phone off and put it face down on the table. Or better yet, don’t bring your phone with you. If the world’s coming to an end, your EA will find you. Let everyone know you’ll have to slip out if your EA shows up. But don’t tell them it’s because the world’s ending.

I worked for a leader who sat in on a meeting where a guest speaker was talking about the unexpected death of their child. While the parent talked, the leader looked at their phone. The parent stopped talking mid-sentence and called out the leader, asking if what was on the phone was more important or interesting. Everyone who wasn’t in the room soon heard about what happened. Don’t make the same mistake.

If you want to remembered the right way, be like Robert Munsch and just drop in unannounced. Here’s one of many stories about the children’s author. An elementary school librarian wrote to Robert for more than a decade, inviting him to their small island school. One morning, Robert showed up at the school alone and out of the blue. He spent the entire day telling stories to students in every class from kindergarten to grade eight.

So, just like Robert Munsch visiting that small school on an island, ditch your entourage when you pay a visit. Show up alone. Don’t take your PR pro up on their offer of tagging along and capturing the moment with photos and video. This isn’t meant to be a publicity shoot.

Also insist that these drop-ins are not to be treated like royal visits (another benefit of showing up unexpectedly). You don’t want the teams and departments spending weeks planning, rehearsing and ordering an obscene amount of food or baking their grandmothers’ favourite cookies and squares that you’re not going to eat because you spending 14 hours a day sitting in meetings.

If you’re offered a tour or meet-and-greet after your visit, graciously accept. Shake hands. Thank everyone for their hard work and dedication. Be open to taking selfies. End the tour by asking for a group photo that you’ll send to the supervisor. Just like in the meetings, give everyone your undivided attention. Leave the impression that there’s nowhere else you’d rather be and no one else you’d rather be spending time with.

When the meeting’s over and the tour’s done, you can talk about what you heard, saw and learned when talking with other employees, or with folks from outside your organization.

One other option – assemble an informal kitchen cabinet. Recruit a half dozen staff from across the organization. This’ll be easier if you’ve risen up through the ranks and have a network of colleagues. To join the cabinet, you have just one rule for prospective members. Be honest at all times. Request that your cabinet speak truth to power. Don’t announce that you have a cabinet and reveal who’s on it. Don’t bring the cabinet together in a room. Just pick up the phone and call each of them individually. No need to bribe them with coffee, bacon and eggs. I worked for a president (one of the best leaders I’ve seen in action) who assembled a kitchen cabinet of veteran employees. They kept him grounded and finely tuned to what was really going on in the organization. They were his sounding board and reality check. If you want honest, unfiltered feedback, this is the way to go.

NEXT UP:?Deadly leadership communications spin #4 – You should be a thought leader!