The longer I lead and advise other leaders, the more I appreciate the value of keeping things simple. And if you can find something that has high impact and is simple, that’s golden.

Recently, I interviewed my friend Craig Ballantyne, a Wall Street Journal bestselling author and mentor to leaders around the world.

Craig leads a virtual team spread across Canada and the United States, from the east coast to the west coast. During our wide-ranging conversation, he described how he communicates with his team.

For me, it’s not just that his approach is simple. It’s how much he can accomplish through one short, weekly email. Over time, those specific benefits build up.

I thought I’d share it with you here. The link to the full interview is right here.

The Short and Sweet Team Communication Formula

Every week, Craig sits down and writes a short communiqué to his team. (Communiqué sounds more impressive than ’email.’)

It’s only about 300-500 words. If printed, it would take up about a page. It briefly covers five things:

1. How are we doing?

Craig shares the previous week’s results. This might include sales, profit, completed projects, or whatever measures matter most to the team. He doesn’t share everything. Just the high-level metrics that are relevant.

He also uses this section to recognize team members for specific contributions. His principle is: What gets recognized gets repeated.

Along with showing appreciation, this simple practice reinforces the organization’s long-range vision and short-range priorities. It helps everyone see how they’re doing, what’s important, and what behaviors or contributions are producing results.

Not only that, but if you know you might be named in a company-wide email, you are more likely to read it.

2. What are we doing next?

Craig communicates what’s coming up: events, priorities, absences, deadlines, changes, and who people should go to for specific needs.

The goal is to reduce uncertainty and help the team know what to expect.

This speaks to one of leadership’s core responsibilities: taking an unknown future and making it as clear as possible.

Craig’s focus here is near-term and practical. He’s helping people prepare for what’s coming so they can make good decisions and pursue their goals.

Again, this reinforces future thinking and company vision and priorities.

3. Why do we do this?

Craig shares customer success stories that demonstrate the impact of the team’s work. These can be large wins or very small ones. He didn’t say this, but for employees who primarily support other employees, stories about those wins work as well.

Many leaders make the mistake of assuming employees can see the impact of their work. But most people are lost in the weeds of the day and dealing with the day’s challenges, so they lose sight of the bigger picture.

This is particularly true for back-office staff who may rarely interact with customers.

Regularly sharing these stories reconnects people with organizational values and the purpose of their work. It reminds them of the good their organization does and the value it brings to customers.

4. I need your help with…

Craig then asks his team for feedback or ideas.

One example he shared was asking everyone to review some advertising copy he’d written and tell him what could be improved.

When you know that one of Craig’s areas of business expertise is copywriting, you realize he’s asking his team for input on something he probably taught many of them to do.

I like this for several reasons. He gets access to perspectives he might otherwise miss. He gives people a voice and invites their participation.

And, while Craig didn’t explicitly say this, he’s also modeling leadership humility. He’s willing to ask for help, even in areas where he has clear strengths.

But it doesn’t have to specifically be feedback for you. It can just as well be gathering ideas for a company question or to help out a specific department.

This helps break down walls between positions and departments and gives permission to others to acknowledge that they don’t have all the answers.

5. Repeat the core values and recognize someone living them.

Every week, Craig repeats his company’s core values and recognizes at least one person who demonstrated one of them.

He gave an example of recognizing a team member whose improved presentation demonstrated their value of personal growth.

This matches guidance I’ve given my clients: Don’t let your values die on the wall.

They do no good if they just sit on a conference room poster or on your website. They need to be alive. Refer to them regularly and describe what they look like in action so others understand how to put them into practice.

This becomes particularly important as organizations grow. Clearly defined values that managers know how to apply are one of the easiest ways to maintain your culture, create consistency, and support managers in working successfully with less direct oversight.

Small Practice. Cumulative Impact.

That’s a lot to accomplish in 300-500 words.

Stripped down, Craig’s weekly communication formula is:

Results → What’s Next → Why It Matters → Ask for Input → Reinforce Values

It’s simple. Any leader can do it.

But consider what happens when it’s repeated every week.

Over the course of a year, Craig will have reinforced his organization’s priorities, recognized good performance, reminded people of the value of their work, invited participation, and demonstrated his company’s values 52 times.

It’s a little like a high-potency vitamin for your team. A small, regular practice that supports several important aspects of organizational health.

One email won’t accomplish all of this. But the cumulative impact of regularly reinforcing these things could be substantial.

As leaders, we’re often looking for ways to improve our teams through new initiatives, programs, or systems. Sometimes those are needed.

But it’s also worth looking for simple practices that accomplish several things at once and are easy enough to sustain.

This seems like a good one.

Would it work for your team?

Take good care,

Christian