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Employees crave interaction with leaders. Individual contributors want to hear more (and more often) from executives about the company’s strategy for growth, opinions on evolving market conditions, their leadership styles, and who they are outside the office.
Remember our privileged position. Most employees don’t work in proximity to decision-makers. Field and factory employees certainly don’t, and the same goes for white-collar professionals who work remotely, part-time in the office, or sixteen floors below the C-suite’s fancy conference room.
One clever way to connect employees with leadership is inspired by Reddit’s Ask Me Anything (AMA) forum. Reddit’s AMA features experts and amateurs from any field or experience—like Barack Obama, 100-year-old grandmothers, research scientists, firefighters, average people doing average things (and doing really weird and dumb things, too), you name it—taking questions from the public and answering them in real-time through written responses.
A chatroom-based AMA is a great way to put leaders in touch with employees in a way that is easy, fun, and approachable. The best part is it requires just an hour of the leader’s time, which is cheap when compared to traveling and preparing for town halls.
In this article I:
Explain why an AMA is a good way to connect employees to leaders
Define three types of AMAs
Show you how to convince the boss to participate
Review technology options
Provide a nine-step process for setting up an AMA
Suggest post-AMA mixternal comms activities that increase the session’s ROI
(By the way, you can always ask me anything. Just hit reply to this email or drop your question in the comments section.)
Why a Chatroom AMA?
Despite the pride your company may take in being a “flat organization,” some (most, depending on the size) employees will never get a chance to meet the head of their department, let alone the CEO, regardless of whether they sit in headquarters, a remote office, or at home.
And despite leaders who say things like, “If you have any concerns about XYZ, you can speak with any member of our leadership team,” how many employees feel empowered to call the CEO and question his growth strategy?
A lightweight, real-time Q&A format that takes place in a chatroom may be a good fix.
Unlike sitting on stage or being on camera with employees able to see the sweat, surprise, confusion, anxiety, and frustration that may occur with every fielded question, an online chat hides the roller coaster of emotions. (Good news for leaders with stage fright.)
Chat platforms—Teams, Slack, VivaEngage, WhatsApp, etc.—are a mainstay of every desk-bound employee’s daily workflow. And everyone else knows how to “chat” using consumer products like iMessage, Telegram, video game platforms, Discord, Twitch, and customer service bots. Meaning everyone can participate in a chat room without additional training.
The barriers to entry are nonexistent.
With loose grammar and sentence rules de-rigueur in chat room conversation, the format is conversational, engaging, and informal, which helps everyone relax.
Lastly, AMAs are fun for employees (and managers) because it’s an out-of-the-ordinary way to connect.
Three Types of AMAs
The first AMA I ever hosted involved 175 staff in 12 offices on five continents speaking with an executive in San Francisco. By the time I left the company more than a dozen AMAs had been hosted by departments around the globe, showing just how easy the format is to replicate outside internal comms.
Topics ranged from free-for-alls (literally ask me anything) to a focused conversation on Asia sales strategies to how the engineering department addresses issues of diversity and inclusion.
In my experience, there are three kinds of AMAs:
True AMA: All employees regardless of where they sit hierarchically in the company are invited and the floor is open to any topic. This is the best kind of AMA because it’s also nerve-wracking: who will throw the curveball question and put the executive on the spot?! And how will she react?! So exciting 😉 😬 🍿.
Thematic: This approach is theme-focused, such as career development or evolving market conditions. It’s appropriate for a targeted audience (e.g., all employees in South America; salespeople in southern America) and for executives who are afraid to answer any question.
Granular: This is the most focused AMA, in that the conversation is narrowly directed (the benefits of product X; reasons for an upcoming merger) and the invitation is limited to audience members who are directly affected, such as customer service reps for product X; employees being absorbed in a merger, etc.
Caveat: The singular disadvantage of a chat room is that the conversation may not be nested. For employees who don’t monotask, it also may be difficult to follow the conversation because they’re also checking email, taking calls, distracted by YouTube, etc. (But hey, that’s their problem.)
Nested chats (or forums) display the parent (original) comment, with all replies “nested” below. Visually the format makes it easy to follow particular conversation threads. Reddit is a prime example of nested conversations.
Convincing the Boss
Unless your boss is Elon Musk and willing to share life moments and oh-so-profound insights on X, you may have to expend time and energy convincing executives to participate in an AMA.
Managers can be hesitant to put themselves in vulnerable situations, especially in a forum called Ask Me Anything.
One can forgive an executive for being shy about opening up in front of employees, what with every unpolished remark vulnerable to a social media-fueled pop culture moment. And few enjoy being put on the spot or called out for something they weren’t prepared to address.
But high-performing executives should not fear being heckled by their underlings. Employees normally avoid posting nasty items, especially when their name is clearly visible in a chatroom, for fear of a) looking like an ass in front of their peers and manager and b) being fired.
You can minimize an executive’s anxiety by limiting the conversation’s scope. (See the three types above.)
Another option is to add an object to the end of the AMA title:
Ask Me Anything About Sales in Asia
Ask Me Anything About Our Go-to-Market Strategy for Product X
Ask Me Anything About Leadership
You get the idea
An addendum to the title focuses the questions because employees understand the bounds of the conversation.
Here are five more selling points:
It just takes 45-60 minutes of the executive’s time
There is no need to prepare notes or practice a presentation
Travel is unnecessary
They can choose the theme they want to talk about
They are engaging directly with employees, which can be a rare activity
What About Technology?
Any chat platform will do: Google Hangouts, Teams, Viva Engage, Slack, Workplace by Facebook, etc.
Just because the setup is easy doesn’t mean you should leap before looking. From a technology standpoint, there are several variables to consider: security, scalability, and ease of use, not to mention the cost.
External (third-party) platforms can be risky because data is typically stored offsite, making it vulnerable to cyberattacks. So… maybe don’t try to do this in a private LinkedIn group?
Before you commit to a tool—if you lack one—be sure your risk and compliance teams vet the platform.
If your employees are global, make sure the technology can be used in their countries.
Another consideration is capacity. Can your chat room handle hundreds of participants, if need be? Where does it max out? In one AMA I hosted I discovered my company’s proprietary chat platform defaulted to a maximum number of room participants at 500. When we hit that number we realized we needed to request an upgrade to 2,000+ participants.
I also recommend participants be unable to engage anonymously. Sure, they can submit questions in advance and ask not to be named, but whether it’s in an email or a question dropped into a chat, the employee’s name should be apparent.
This is a practical fireline to ensure silly and off-topic questions are minimized.
Last, be sure you can capture the conversation for archiving and editing. It’s possible that once you shut down the chat room, you’ll lose the content. You should be able to email or download a copy of the conversation. At least you can copy and paste the discussion into Word.
Ready to Host Your AMA?
Here are the nine steps to create a successful chatroom Ask Me Anything session, including a sample invitation message and setting up a “war room.”
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