Coffee, Donuts, and Conversation
The importance of investing time as a leader
One of the things that I remember most fondly from my early career is something our company at the time called “Coffee and Donuts with the CEO.”
It was just that.
Once every month or two (I forget exactly the cadence), someone one buy donuts, make a few large pots of coffee, and the CEO would sit with them in one of our conference rooms and talk with employees.
There was no agenda.
No set of questions to be asked or answered.
No “specific” business purpose.
The reason he did this was to create connection with members of the team.
To invest the time in relationship-building.
To get to know individual employees, and to make himself available to answer any questions that an employee might have.
Sometimes there were only surface-level conversations.
But other times we got into deep discussions about his vision, the direction of the company, or the challenges we were facing at a given point in time.
What we discussed in those coffee and donut meetings was much less important to me than the fact that our senior-most leader regularly made himself available and accessible to the rest of the company.
Our CEO knew that by hosting these information coffee & donut meetings, he was creating common bonds with people across the company. He was creating a culture of community that would hold us together through some of the most difficult times we’d face in the future.
In today’s world of remote and hybrid work, this is a more difficult task to accomplish. But there are still ways you can do this.
You can host virtual coffee & donut gatherings. In fact, during the pandemic I heard several stories of other leaders doing things like this where they’d send each team member his or her own treat to enjoy during their shared meeting time.
Some leaders are hosting hybrid meet-ups in cities where they have a few employees, or in cities that sit between hubs of employees so that people can gather in-person to connect on a human level.
If you want to build a culture where people show up well for one another, and where collaboration is key, don’t just think about the way you structure work assignments.
Think about the important moments you can create that build and nurture relationships.