Why Your Company Needs a Weekly Super-Update

WEBVTT 1 00:00:10.040 --> 00:00:15.410 information is incredibly hard to prioritize. If you get enough of it 2 00:00:15.410 --> 00:00:19.640 coming at you at once, you'll have no way to separate the most important from 3 00:00:19.640 --> 00:00:24.650 the trivial. Worse than that, you won't even know what to feel excited about. 4 00:00:25.540 --> 00:00:30.520 Imagine a sequence of two minutes in your life that looks like this. Your 5 00:00:30.520 --> 00:00:34.930 phone buzzes. It's a text message from a good friend you knew in college. He's 6 00:00:34.930 --> 00:00:38.460 getting married and he wants you to. But she stopped reading the text 7 00:00:38.470 --> 00:00:41.240 because your four year old daughter is tugging at your arm to get your 8 00:00:41.240 --> 00:00:46.470 attention. She's created her own fort, and it's amazing, she says. It's the 9 00:00:46.480 --> 00:00:51.570 best thing she's ever made. She wants you to come see it. You look it over 10 00:00:51.580 --> 00:00:55.740 and agree. It's pretty cool. Thin Seeing the fort makes you remember 11 00:00:55.740 --> 00:00:59.270 You've got a camping trip coming up with your brother and sister, and you 12 00:00:59.270 --> 00:01:04.110 need to go buy a tent. But wait. There was that text message. Is there a 13 00:01:04.110 --> 00:01:08.560 wedding? Will the dates conflict thin? Your spouse tells you that your 14 00:01:08.560 --> 00:01:13.780 grandparent's air coming into town that weekend, remember? Don't forget, but 15 00:01:13.790 --> 00:01:17.180 your daughter wasn't done showing you that tent. She wants you to climb 16 00:01:17.180 --> 00:01:21.720 inside and play. And you tell her you'd love Thio. But shouldn't you finish 17 00:01:21.720 --> 00:01:25.530 checking that text message? So you go to do it. But there's an email push 18 00:01:25.530 --> 00:01:29.400 notification from your doctor. You just had blood drawn because you've been 19 00:01:29.400 --> 00:01:33.350 feeling lightheaded. You need to see those results. So you open it up. 20 00:01:33.340 --> 00:01:37.310 Everything came back negative. And you're relieved you're playing 21 00:01:37.310 --> 00:01:40.200 basketball with some coworkers on Sunday and you've been worried you 22 00:01:40.200 --> 00:01:45.470 might have to cancel. Now you don't. You're inside that tent pretending to 23 00:01:45.470 --> 00:01:50.920 be a pioneer and doing your best to stay present. But wow, what a whirlwind 24 00:01:50.920 --> 00:01:55.270 of the last two minutes. That Waas How in the world are you supposed to keep 25 00:01:55.270 --> 00:01:56.150 track of it all? 26 00:01:57.510 --> 00:02:00.360 And isn't there a text message you still need to check? 27 00:02:13.840 --> 00:02:18.100 Welcome back to remote a Siris on B two b growth about where remote cultures 28 00:02:18.100 --> 00:02:23.420 breakdown and how to make them stronger than ever. My name is Ryan Draddy and 29 00:02:23.420 --> 00:02:27.380 I'm the director of culture and people opposite sweet Fish Media which has 30 00:02:27.380 --> 00:02:30.620 been a fully remote team for the entirety of its existence. 31 00:02:31.840 --> 00:02:36.440 Today I want to talk about capturing the important updates in your company 32 00:02:36.440 --> 00:02:39.850 each week and combining them into a super update. 33 00:02:41.040 --> 00:02:45.040 The importance of the super update starts with an issue, and the issue is 34 00:02:45.040 --> 00:02:50.820 this. The typical organization sends out too many communications on too many 35 00:02:50.820 --> 00:02:55.730 separate platforms for a single person to reasonably expect to remember them 36 00:02:55.730 --> 00:02:56.150 all. 37 00:02:57.540 --> 00:03:02.800 This is true for key updates as well as fun or superficial ones. Maybe your 38 00:03:02.800 --> 00:03:06.370 operations team celebrates on slack. When a new customer comes through the 39 00:03:06.370 --> 00:03:10.890 door, your sales team sends out an email when an important customer renews, 40 00:03:11.440 --> 00:03:15.540 three employees have birthdays. You have a team wide, virtual happy hour 41 00:03:15.540 --> 00:03:19.640 coming up next Monday, and the whole company is shifting to a new project 42 00:03:19.640 --> 00:03:22.060 management system when the new year rolls around. 43 00:03:23.440 --> 00:03:27.940 Even if one person catches all of these updates as they come through, chances 44 00:03:27.940 --> 00:03:31.940 are the business of heads down work will cause them to forget several of 45 00:03:31.940 --> 00:03:36.560 them within minutes. And any excitement or sense of preparation you are trying 46 00:03:36.560 --> 00:03:41.820 to convey to your team is lost. Before it had the chance to thrive, and any 47 00:03:41.820 --> 00:03:45.620 excitement or sense of preparation you were trying to convey to your team is 48 00:03:45.620 --> 00:03:50.580 lost before it had a chance to thrive at sweet Fish. We try to address this 49 00:03:50.580 --> 00:03:55.110 problem by sharing a document with our whole team every Friday, called I C Y M 50 00:03:55.110 --> 00:04:00.640 I, which stands for in case you missed it, the I C Y M I update allows me to 51 00:04:00.640 --> 00:04:05.710 collect all the important announcements upcoming events, birthdays, vacations 52 00:04:05.710 --> 00:04:10.460 and so on from the week Look ahead to next week and bring it all onto one 53 00:04:10.460 --> 00:04:15.210 document that gets shared with everyone. It's a catch all for communication and 54 00:04:15.210 --> 00:04:19.760 helps reinforce the culture of information transfer. If someone misses 55 00:04:19.760 --> 00:04:23.800 the update the first time around or forgets or doesn't register the 56 00:04:23.800 --> 00:04:28.170 importance of the update, a second share often cemented in their mind. 57 00:04:29.140 --> 00:04:33.200 Further, if you could make the I see why am I interesting enough? People are 58 00:04:33.200 --> 00:04:37.930 more likely to pay close attention to it and soak up the information. Which 59 00:04:37.930 --> 00:04:42.190 is not at all to say that making this super update fun is a means to an end. 60 00:04:43.040 --> 00:04:47.020 In fact, the bigger value of the I C. Y M. I and our company is probably the 61 00:04:47.020 --> 00:04:50.630 fact that it's an entertaining document that just so happens to contain 62 00:04:50.630 --> 00:04:54.270 important updates for our business, not the other way around 63 00:04:55.740 --> 00:05:00.190 to make it fun. In our context, we use lots of gifts. Memes and funny 64 00:05:00.190 --> 00:05:04.290 Screenshots on the largest section of the document is always the random 65 00:05:04.290 --> 00:05:09.220 section in which we recap the funniest or most interesting responses to our 66 00:05:09.220 --> 00:05:11.660 daily questions of the day. On slack, 67 00:05:12.740 --> 00:05:16.150 I'll usually pull new gifts when I share a recap of the responses in the 68 00:05:16.150 --> 00:05:20.460 random section. So the I see why am I actually ends up being fresh content 69 00:05:20.460 --> 00:05:24.560 itself and not just a stale reiteration of things people have already seen. 70 00:05:25.340 --> 00:05:28.780 Lots of people that sweet fish have said that reading the Y M I is their 71 00:05:28.780 --> 00:05:34.720 favorite part of the week the I C Y my ends with the random section. But there 72 00:05:34.720 --> 00:05:39.410 are other sections that we use above that Here they are. We kick off the 73 00:05:39.410 --> 00:05:44.120 document with key updates. These are the most important or relevant updates 74 00:05:44.120 --> 00:05:45.140 across the business. 75 00:05:46.140 --> 00:05:51.390 Next is what's coming up in that one we share who's going to be out of office 76 00:05:51.390 --> 00:05:55.460 the following week, and when who has birthdays the next week and any 77 00:05:55.460 --> 00:06:00.160 important meetings, holidays or events coming up, then we have a sweet fish in 78 00:06:00.160 --> 00:06:04.450 the news section in which we share times that sweet fish is literally in 79 00:06:04.450 --> 00:06:09.950 the news but more often updates related to individual team members, clients. 80 00:06:09.950 --> 00:06:12.860 And in our context, podcast launches. 81 00:06:14.440 --> 00:06:18.300 We have a few sections dedicated to updates for specific teams after that, 82 00:06:18.300 --> 00:06:23.220 such as a writing team or a producer team. We also have a new customer 83 00:06:23.220 --> 00:06:28.560 section where we celebrate. Yep, you guessed it. Then it's the random 84 00:06:28.560 --> 00:06:30.670 section. Before we sign off for the weekend, 85 00:06:31.940 --> 00:06:35.880 I share the document on our team wide General Channel on slack, and people 86 00:06:35.880 --> 00:06:37.760 read it when they have free time on Friday. 87 00:06:38.940 --> 00:06:42.750 This is just the way we do it. But of course you could do it however you want. 88 00:06:43.240 --> 00:06:46.970 Maybe it's a single weekly email to the whole company, recapping important 89 00:06:46.970 --> 00:06:52.560 updates. Maybe it's a video from the CEO. The important thing is to make it 90 00:06:52.560 --> 00:06:55.560 two things interesting and relevant. 91 00:06:56.740 --> 00:07:01.180 If you're missing either of those two things but especially interesting, 92 00:07:01.240 --> 00:07:03.850 people won't read it, and you're wasting your time. 93 00:07:05.640 --> 00:07:09.960 One other note here, however, you choose to put together a super update. 94 00:07:10.440 --> 00:07:14.820 Keep in mind that it's most beneficial for news and updates that don't require 95 00:07:14.830 --> 00:07:19.980 any action on the part of the reader. If you are assigning tasks or need 96 00:07:19.980 --> 00:07:23.740 someone to do something in response to your update, do it through some other 97 00:07:23.740 --> 00:07:28.630 channels. If you've already requested something or assigned a task on another 98 00:07:28.630 --> 00:07:32.370 channel, it's okay to use the super update to remind the team of that 99 00:07:32.370 --> 00:07:37.790 request. Just don't use the update itself as the request. This is Mormon 100 00:07:37.790 --> 00:07:39.650 internal newsletter than anything, 101 00:07:41.140 --> 00:07:47.720 actually, one final final note Onley. One person should own this. It's okay 102 00:07:47.720 --> 00:07:52.420 for them to assign the update or pieces of it to others that make sure only one 103 00:07:52.420 --> 00:07:57.270 person is responsible for drafting the update and sending it out. This person 104 00:07:57.270 --> 00:08:00.760 works like an editor, making sure the update ships on time each week, 105 00:08:02.040 --> 00:08:06.090 and that's really it. Stop expecting people to catch every piece of 106 00:08:06.090 --> 00:08:08.620 information thrown at them throughout their busy weeks. 107 00:08:09.850 --> 00:08:14.310 Collect the most important items for them, immortalize them by writing them 108 00:08:14.310 --> 00:08:18.440 down somewhere. Then send out the aggregated company news to everyone. 109 00:08:19.770 --> 00:08:24.010 If you did it right, they'll head into the weekend, informed and laughing 110 00:08:24.010 --> 00:08:24.950 their heads off