Leadership Roundtable guidelines

Up: § Leadership Roundtables

Origin and purpose

  • The leadership roundtables were started in early 2022 as a way to harness the wisdom and perspectives of the wider leadership group at Buffer. This was part of establishing The leadership group at Buffer.
  • Becoming more connected and having a regular space for debate and discussion has been helpful for decision making, driving aligned action towards goals, to disseminate cultural shifts, and knowledge sharing between leaders and managers.
  • Leadership roundtables are monthly synchronous discussions on currently important topics between all the leaders of the company. This includes anyone who is a manager and individual contributors at a Staff level or leading a unique and high impact area of focus.

Logistics

  • With the roundtable discussions we are intending to create a safe space for discussing challenges and opportunities very openly. Please don’t hold back.
  • Leadership roundtables are monthly, and the Leadership Group is split into two roughly equal groups based on time zones.
  • We will be placing these roughly at the mid point between All Hands, to space out these larger group meetings and keep our energy levels high.
  • Recorded for others in the leadership group, will not be shared with the rest of the company.
  • For each of the two Leadership Roundtable meetings, Mandy attends and is the note-taker. So don’t feel any need to take notes other than if that’s a useful part of your participation.
  • Mandy collates the notes from both groups, removes anything very sensitive, and then shares a summary of our discussions with the wider team.

Ground rules / context

  • This is not a town hall, this is a round table. Historically at Buffer, a town hall is set up to ask the people who can make changes questions. At a round table, all the people who can make changes are present and have productive discussion and debate and come out with improvements and clarity and alignment.
  • Importantly, the roundtables are not a place to pose questions and expect all the answers from exec team. Instead they’re a place for everyone to debate and contribute ideas for solutions. Asks for clarity are totally valid, but often can be a barrier in taking a leap of leadership yourself.
  • Everyone in this group is a key leader in the company. And as a result, within this group we should all feel, individually and collectively, that we can change things. We can shape this company, improve things, push ourselves to be a company we’re proud of and take advantages of opportunities, in order to thrive and create something special. I’ll mention this at the start of every Leadership Roundtable because I know at times we may feel that things are beyond our control, or there is a process, or there is someone else that owns something. But that’s not true, it can be as simple as a conversation and among this group, we can change anything we want to. I’d like to encourage you to channel that sense of possibility, flexibility and ability to change into the discussions here.
  • Therefore, Leadership Roundtable is a space to work together as the leaders of the company to take advantage of opportunities and solve problems. It’s a time to share your opinion, your ideas to improve things, and the ways you’re incorporating a current theme or challenge into your role or area of the company you’re leading.
  • Here are a few examples of this:
    • The way I will be pursuing this goal is that I plan to ask you all questions, rather than asking you all for questions. Ask Questions rather than Asking For Questions
    • If you share a signal, also share what your opinion is, and what you said in response to that person.
    • If you have a question, also share your idea for improvement or clarity
    • Take a stance and take that risk, put yourself out there. Push us to be bold. Disagree when you feel that niggling sense that something doesn’t sit right with you. This will lead to more meaningful and productive discourse. That’s what we’re aiming for here.
  • To be clear, I am not trying to discourage bringing up problems or pointing out issues. However, I am trying to discourage sharing in that way that doesn’t take on some level of leadership of improving things.
  • We're not aiming for anyone to disproportionately come away from this meeting with a todo list
  • More solutions than problems. Context sharing is great, but this isn't a place to break down every idea and why it could fail.
  • Try to cross-pollinate with the other time zone group

Format

  • Generally 2 topics. Same for both groups.
  • Split the time by number of topics. 2 topics, ~25 minutes per topic to allow breathing room and finish on time.
  • Aim to discuss and hear most if not all voices. Try to have a personal goal to not feel like a discussion is finishing with something left unsaid from you.
  • We often have our mics turned off in group meetings. Please turn your mic on, unless you specifically have some disruptive background noise. This will allow us to have a more fluid discussion.
  • Of course, with the time constraints, we will often feel like we could discuss much longer. We’ll follow the 80/20 principle here and assume that we will get 80% of the value from that 25 mins of time (50 if counting both groups). And we can always revisit, or revisit a specific part, of a topic.
  • For now, I am going to set the topics as I want to drive things a certain way and hear from you on specific items. Please do message me, if there’s a burning topic you want to discuss next month. In the future I will be strongly considering sourcing topics from the group, too.
  • But I want to get us off to a smooth start here, so for now I’ll be deciding the topics. This is also a way for me to guide us as a leadership team based on what I see coming up.
  • Cognizant of number of people. Try to be concise if you can, and aware of who hasn’t spoken yet who might want to.

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