Assignment Submission · Team Builder Role · June 2026
Making the Meeting Worth Waiting For
My first ideas, what was wrong with them, what I changed, and where to start.
scroll down
My first ideas, what was wrong with them, what I changed, and where to start.
The team is genuinely great. You can feel it watching. But the meeting format is not showing that yet. Here is exactly what I noticed.
Rajat is bursting with excitement talking about Youth 2.0. Mini and Diksha are running the entire food wing by themselves. The WhatsApp team hit 187% of their goal. This is not a team that is checked out. The meeting just has not found a way to show what is already there.
The brain is in watch mode, not talk mode. Switching from watching to speaking is a bigger step than it sounds. And when the founders are in the room, speaking up feels like an even bigger step. Nobody wants to say the wrong thing in front of Subah and Harsh.
To respond you need a question, you need to believe it is worth everyone's time, and you need to actually unmute in front of 35 people. Most people get stuck before they even start thinking of a question. It is even harder when the founders are watching. Most people would rather stay quiet than risk looking silly.
That is not laziness. That is what happens when a meeting does not need you to be present. When you can just watch, your brain finds other things to do.
The food team's tasting video, Rajat's excitement about building his team, and Riya showing all the potluck cities are the moments I still remember. The numbers I have already forgotten. Right now those human moments are optional. They should not be.
It is hard to switch from watching a polished, edited video to saying something real out loud. That switch is a bigger ask than it looks. The format itself is creating the silence, before Subah even opens the floor.
What would it take for someone to think on the first Sunday of every month: "Oh. Meeting tomorrow. Nice."
not "I have to go" but "I actually want to be there"Everything I want to change is working toward that feeling.
When I first sat with this problem, here is what came to mind. These are the obvious ideas. Most people would stop here. I did not.
Music before the video starts to help people settle in
Gratitude drop in chat before the video plays
Random breakout rooms, 5 minutes, one question
Behind-the-scenes clip from each team in their recording
Person of the Month picked by the team lead
One specific question from Subah after each pod
Sunday preview message from Subah the evening before
Quarterly game or activity added to the meeting
Wall of Champions on Lark tracking recognition over the year
Being honest about what is wrong with your own ideas is important. Here is what I found when I looked more carefully at each one, and what I changed.
But who picks the song? If nobody owns it, it will not happen. And there are multiple Persons of the Month each month, one per team, so saying "last month's Person of the Month picks the song" does not work. Which person from which team? Without a clear owner and a clear rotation, this quietly disappears after month two.
The fix: At the start of each quarter, assign one team to each of the three months. The team lead picks one song and shares one sentence about why. Pre-decided rotation, so everyone always knows whose turn it is.
Every startup has been doing this since 2020. When you ask "what are you grateful for?", most people type "grateful for the team" in two seconds and move on. It sounds warm. But you do not actually learn anything real about anyone. It is hollow.
The fix: Use a Mentimeter word cloud instead. Everyone types one word for how their month felt. Words appear live and grow bigger when more people say the same thing. You see the whole team's mood in 30 seconds. Free, no Lark integration needed. Just screen share.
Five minutes is too short. The first 90 seconds are just awkward introductions. By the time real conversation starts, the timer is up. Also, asking one person per room to share back puts random people on the spot in front of 35 colleagues and the founders. A team lead who ends up in a room could feel uncomfortable being asked to share something personal out loud in that context.
The fix: 7 to 8 minutes, not 5. Three people per room, not four. Two questions. When rooms close, everyone simply comes back to the main Lark Meeting and the meeting continues. No sharing back required. The conversation they just had is enough. The value is the connection, not the performance. One more thing: 35 people cannot divide evenly into groups of three. You will always have two people left over. Put them into one room with a third person. That room gets four people. Everyone is in a room.
We made this optional. If it is optional, busy teams skip it. After two months, only some teams are doing it and the gap between teams gets more visible, not less. Also, it was not clear where in the video this clip appears.
The fix: Mandatory, and placed specifically at the very end of each team's pre-recorded video segment, the last 30 to 45 seconds before the video pauses for the live break. The OKR submission checklist includes it as a required item. Teams that do not submit one get a reminder from the OKR team before the editing deadline.
The lead will naturally pick the person they work with most closely, or the person who had the most visible win. After three months, people notice who never gets picked. The recognition starts to feel like politics, not appreciation.
The fix: Peer nomination via an anonymous Lark Form sent to each team the week before the meeting. The team votes. The lead receives the result on Friday, prepares one specific sentence about the winner, and announces it live during the pod break on Monday. Live is what gives it energy.
Subah is already hosting the call, managing the video, and watching the chat. Writing four fresh questions every month is a lot. After two or three months, this either gets dropped or the same questions get recycled.
The fix: Build a question bank of 30 to 40 questions in advance, organized by team type. The OKR editing team matches two or three questions to the most interesting moments in the video they just compiled and passes them to Subah before the meeting. Her prep time: two minutes. The bank is a shared Lark Doc that the OKR team maintains and adds to over time.
Another monthly writing task on top of everything she already does as the host. Without a clear owner for the draft, this will quietly stop happening.
The fix: The OKR editing team drafts three bullets from the video they just finished and posts them in the all-hands Lark Group Chat. Subah reads it, adds one personal sentence, and sends. Her time: two minutes.
Too vague to actually happen. Nobody knows what it is. Whoever is responsible will dread the first Monday of every quarter. Vague ideas get pushed to next month, and then the month after that.
The fix: Assign one fixed format to each quarterly meeting type. It repeats every cycle with different content. Nobody has to invent anything new. Details in the quarterly section below.
If the Person of the Month is still picked by the team lead, the Wall becomes a record of who leads liked. Also, there were no clear logistics: who updates it, when, and how does the quarterly reveal actually happen without someone scrambling to build a slide in real time during the call?
The fix: Full logistics below. Short version: peer nomination solves the bias, the OKR team updates the shared Lark Doc after each call, and the quarterly slide is built BEFORE the meeting, not during it.
With all the fixes in place, here is the complete picture organized by when each idea happens in the meeting and around it.
At the start of each quarter, one team is assigned to each month. The lead picks one song and shares one sentence about why. Everyone always knows whose turn it is.
"I picked this because it was playing during our longest tasting session. It just takes me straight back to that whole month."
"This is what I listen to when I am still working at 11pm and need to not lose my mind. March was full of those nights."
"Our team put this on the day we hit our workshop goal. It felt right to share it with everyone today."
One word for how your month felt. Everyone types from their own device. Words appear live and grow bigger when more people say the same thing. Free, takes 30 seconds to set up. Different from the breakout: the word cloud shows you the whole room's mood at once. The breakout is where you actually talk about it.
"One word for how you are feeling about the next three months."
"One word that describes the energy in your work right now."
"One word that captures how this quarter felt for you personally."
Rooms of 3, two questions, 7 to 8 minutes. No sharing back when rooms close. This is the only time in the month when a designer might talk to someone from the food team, or a video editor might meet someone from marketing. And unlike the main call, three people, no founders watching, no pressure. That is where real things get said.
"What is one thing you are excited about this quarter, and what is one thing you are quietly nervous about?"
"What is the funniest thing that happened at work this month, and what is one thing you are proud of that nobody knows about?"
"What is one moment from this quarter you want to remember, and who from another team made your quarter better?"
In a group of four, one person always talks less. In a group of three, the conversation is more equal. Everyone tends to contribute.
The first is easy and fun. It gets people talking. The second is slightly more personal. That is where actual connection happens. One question alone stays surface level.
Wheel of Names is a free web tool. The host shares their screen and spins the wheel. Names are assigned to rooms visually. It makes the randomization feel fun instead of logistical. The host pre-loads all names before the call starts.
After 7 to 8 minutes, Lark Meeting automatically brings everyone back to the main call. Subah says something light, like "Welcome back. Let's get into the updates." No sharing back. No pressure. The conversation they had is the reward on its own.
The OKR team keeps a simple log in a shared Lark Doc of who has been in rooms together. Over 12 months, most people will have spoken to almost everyone else in the organization at least once.
One unpolished moment from the month, at the very end of each team's pre-recorded segment, right before the video pauses for the live break. It bridges the data and the conversation. Required on the OKR submission checklist. Teams that miss it get a reminder before the editing deadline.
A 20-second clip of the team's reaction when they first heard the 3.4 million view number on the jaggery video
A photo from the eggs farm visit where everyone looks tired but genuinely excited
A voice note of the team lead reading the first comment on the courtroom video to the team on a group call
The week before the meeting, each team gets an anonymous Lark Form with one question. Closes Friday. Results go to the team lead. On Monday, during the live pod break, the lead unmutes and announces the winner in one specific sentence. Live, not pre-recorded. That is what gives it energy.
"Hima edited two videos back to back in one week and showed up for the shoot the same weekend. Every video you watched today had her in it."
"Suba got a recipe that three developers had already tried and fixed it in a single day. The millet food book is better because of one afternoon she decided to stay late."
"Hari was not asked to build the thumbnail tracker. He saw the problem, stayed two extra hours, and built something the whole team now uses every week."
One specific question that anyone on the team can answer, not just people who work with that pod. The OKR team picks from a shared Lark Doc question bank and passes two or three options to Subah before the meeting. She picks one. No open-ended "any questions?" anywhere in the meeting. Subah reads two or three responses out loud before moving on. The conversation does not disappear into the chat.
"Two people ran the entire food wing last month. Drop an emoji in the Lark chat that says how that makes you feel."
"WhatsApp hit 187% of their goal by reusing an old message. Type yes or no in chat: has something simple ever worked better for you than expected?"
"Rajat is calling this next chapter Youth 2.0. If you had to name the next chapter of your own work, what would you call it? Drop it in the Lark chat."
Not a summary. Three names, one specific thing each person did, and why it matters. The OKR team flags 3 to 4 moments while editing the video and sends them to Subah. She picks three and adds anything she noticed herself. The format never changes. Just someone paying close attention.
"Hima is in the credits of every single video we published this month. Not some of them. All of them. I just want everyone to hear that out loud."
"Rajat flew to Bangalore this month with no team around him yet. He is building something from nothing. That takes a kind of courage I want to recognize."
"Mini and Diksha hosted two workshops, managed a YouTube channel, and showed up to food book tastings all in the same month. I do not think they slept properly once."
Each quarter, Subah quietly picks one team to hold the baton, the team she wants the rest of the organisation to notice. At the start of closing: "The food team holds the baton this month. At the end of today's meeting, they will pass it to whoever they have been watching." At the end of closing, the holding team's lead names the next team. The baton is about noticing others, not how well you did. A team cannot pass it to the same team twice in a row. If a team had a hard month, Subah takes the announcement. The baton still moves.
"We are passing the baton to the tech team. They launched three things this month while nobody was talking about them. We were watching."
"We are passing the baton to the youth wing. Rajat is building a team from nothing in a new city. We just want him to know we see that."
"We are passing the baton to the design team. The courtroom thumbnail stopped all of us mid-scroll this month. That work deserved this."
60 seconds. Subah highlights one practice from one team that any other team could use right now. The OKR editing team flags one candidate while compiling the video and suggests it to Subah. She approves or picks a different one. Right after the meeting, the OKR team posts it in the all-hands Lark chat with one line: what it is and which team it came from. The idea now has somewhere to live.
"This month's steal: the main channel's A/B thumbnail testing. Run two versions in the first 48 hours, track which performs better, and update. Any team creating content can try this tomorrow."
"This month's steal: the WhatsApp team's habit of testing an old message before writing a new one. Before you create something, check if something you already made works better."
"This month's steal: the food team's external recipe developer model. Brief outside contributors, gather feedback, and retest. Any team with a quality problem should look at this."
Thirty seconds to close every meeting. Each team lead submits one line about what is coming next month as part of their OKR submission. The OKR team compiles these and sends the teaser to Subah before the meeting. She reads it as the very last thing she says. One connected sentence, not a list of announcements.
"Next month: the protein video goes live, the eggs shoot is finally happening, Rajat is introducing his first team member, and the millet food book moves into final tastings. Come back and see all of it."
The OKR editing team drafts three bullets from the video they just finished and posts them in the all-hands Lark Group Chat on Sunday evening. Subah adds one personal sentence and sends. Just a message in the existing group. Her time: two minutes. Team shows up curious instead of compliant.
"Tomorrow: one team shares their biggest miss of the month and what they are already doing about it, one team is revealing something they built quietly, and one team just hit a number they have never hit before. 9:30."
"Tomorrow: the food team shows what happened when two kids came to HQ for a shoot, marketing shares which three words drove 10x their usual conversions, and we find out if the protein video beat last quarter's best."
"Tomorrow: one team is being completely honest about a tough month, one team just crossed a milestone that took two years, and Rajat shares what building Youth 2.0 actually looks like from the inside. See you at 9:30."
Two days before the meeting, the OKR team posts one prompt in the all-hands Lark Group Chat. Everyone replies with one photo. The person posting always shares their own first, you cannot ask people to go first if nobody goes first. By Monday, everyone has already seen something real about everyone else.
"Post one photo from your month. Work or personal. Anything. Just one."
"One photo that captures how this month felt for you."
"A photo of something you are proud of from this month, big or small."
One anonymous Lark Form per team, sent the week before the meeting. Closes Friday. Results go to the team lead. The OKR team handles sending and collecting. Here is the template.
"Hi team. This month's anonymous vote is open. One question: who in our team made this month possible in a way that others might not have seen? Vote by Friday. Results stay anonymous. The winner is announced live in Monday's meeting."
Four pods instead of three. This gives more equal time to each team and avoids the meeting feeling like one long block of information before any interaction happens. Total time: 60 minutes. In the first month or two, the meeting might run to 65 minutes. That is okay. The format gets faster once everyone knows how it works.
The team's energy at the start of a quarter is completely different from the middle and the end. Here is what changes and when.
Nothing to review yet. The whole meeting should point forward.
"This quarter we will shoot at least one video outside of headquarters for the first time."
"This quarter we will test one completely new channel we have never used before, even if we do not know if it will work."
"The jaggery-style food truth video will not stay a one-time thing. We are betting we can repeat that format and hit similar numbers."
"How many workshops did the food wing run this quarter? A: two, B: four, C: six, D: eight"
"Which team exceeded their quarterly goal by the highest percentage? A: WhatsApp, B: email, C: YouTube, D: app"
"How many cities had potluck events last month? A: five, B: ten, C: seventeen, D: twenty-three"
"What is one thing you are excited about this quarter, and what is one thing you are quietly nervous about?"
The most important meeting to design well, and the one that gets the least attention.
"What did you want to be when you were 10 years old?"
"What is one skill you have that nobody at Satvic knows about?"
"What is the last thing that genuinely surprised you?"
"What is the funniest thing that happened at work this month, and what is one thing you are quietly proud of?"
The most emotionally layered meeting. Real celebration with real reflection.
Roots. Tastings. Finally.
Building. Alone. Excited.
Bold. Overshoot. Grateful.
"What is one moment from this quarter you will remember, and who from another team do you want to thank?"
None of these need IT setup or Lark integration. Anyone can open them in a browser two minutes before the call starts. External tools just need the host to share their screen on Lark Meeting.
mentimeter.com, free. Word clouds and live polls. Host shares screen. Everyone types from their own device.
wheelofnames.com, free. Breakout room assignment and Hot Seat selection. Host shares screen. Names are pre-loaded before the call.
Built into Lark. Anonymous survey and forms tool. Used for the peer nomination vote and the Hot Seat opt-in. Confirmed to support anonymous responses.
Built into Lark group chats. Click the More icon in the message input. Used for Prediction Game questions sent before start-of-quarter meetings.
Built into Lark. Shared documents. Used for the question bank, the Wall of Champions running record, and the breakout room pairing log.
Here is exactly how this works, step by step. Nothing is created in real time during the call.
Lark Forms nomination closes. Each team lead receives their team's anonymous vote result. They prepare one specific sentence about the winner for Monday.
The OKR team adds the winners' names (and the one sentence from each lead) to the shared Lark Doc called "Wall of Champions." This doc is pinned in the all-hands Lark Group Chat so anyone can view it at any time. This takes about 10 minutes.
Each team lead unmutes during their pod break and announces the winner live. The Lark Doc is already updated. The announcement is the celebration.
The OKR team prepares a simple visual slide showing all 9 to 12 champions from the quarter. This slide is made BEFORE the meeting, not during it. Subah shows it at the start of the closing phase and reads every name aloud. Takes about 2 minutes and is one of the warmest moments of the whole year.
Do not try to do all of this at once. Every new ritual needs time to stick. Here is the priority order, with the easiest and highest-impact ideas first.
Do three things well before adding a fourth. A good ritual that actually happens is worth more than ten great ideas that never do.
this is the most important line in this whole documentI have seen a lot of team rituals start strong and quietly die by month three. Not because the ideas were bad. Because too many were running at once and nobody had the time to keep them alive. One ritual that actually happens every month is worth ten great ideas on a slide.
The meeting already has most of what it needs. The team is doing real work. The intention to build accountability and connection at the same time is exactly right.
What I want to add is one feeling: that this meeting belongs to everyone, not just the people presenting. That being seen here means something. That every month, you learn something about a teammate you did not know before.
I have spent years trying to get people to open up in rooms, big ones, small ones, online ones. What I know is that people do not stay quiet because they do not care. They stay quiet because nobody made it safe to speak. That is the one thing a team builder can actually change. Everything else follows.
That is the meeting worth waiting for.
That is what I would work toward.