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, especially when the founders are in the room.
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.
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.
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 thought about this problem, here is what I came up with. Nine ideas. They were a good starting point. But each one had a problem.
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 per month to pick the opening song. A simple rotation decided in advance. The team lead from that team picks one song and shares one sentence about why. Clear ownership, no ambiguity, and the music is always personal to someone on the team.
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. The host shares their screen on Lark Meeting so the word cloud is visible to everyone. The words appear live, bigger if more people say the same thing. You see the whole team's mood in 30 seconds. It is honest, visual, and much more interesting than generic gratitude. Mentimeter is a free web tool. 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.
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 (Lark's built-in form and survey tool) sent to each team the week before the meeting. Lark Forms supports anonymous responses. 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. The announcement is live, not pre-recorded, so it has real 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 compiling and posts them as a message to the all-hands Lark Group Chat. Subah reads it, adds one personal sentence, and sends. Her time: two minutes. The all-hands group chat is the right place because it reaches everyone without needing a special tool.
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 specific game format to each type of quarterly meeting. Three fixed formats that repeat every cycle with different content each time. Nobody has to invent something new. They just run the format they already know. 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 in the final ideas section. Short version: peer nomination solves the bias, the OKR team updates a shared Lark Doc after each call, and the quarterly slide is prepared by the OKR team BEFORE the end-of-quarter meeting. Nothing is built in real time on the call.
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 of the three months. That team's lead picks one song and shares one sentence about why. The rotation is pre-decided so 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. The host opens Mentimeter in their browser and shares their screen on Lark Meeting. Everyone types from their own device. Words appear live and grow bigger when more people say the same thing. Mentimeter is free. Takes 30 seconds to set up each month.
"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."
Everyone is randomly sorted into rooms of 3. Two questions. When rooms close, everyone comes back to the main Lark Meeting and the meeting moves forward. No one is asked to share anything back. The conversation they just had is enough. The random mix of leads and non-leads is intentional: 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. That is the whole point.
"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.
Every team submits one unpolished moment from their month as the very last thing in their pre-recorded video, right before the video pauses for the live break. It plays as a transition between the OKR data and the live interaction. It is added to the OKR submission checklist and every team must include one. Teams that do not submit one get a reminder from the OKR team 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 receives an anonymous Lark Form (Lark's built-in forms tool, confirmed to support anonymous submissions) asking one question. The form closes on Friday. Results go to the team lead. On Monday, during the live pod break, the lead unmutes and announces the winner with one specific sentence. The announcement is live because that is what gives it energy. All leads know to be ready for this 45-second moment.
"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.
"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. Personal observations, specific and human. Here is how it works: while the OKR editing team compiles the video each month, they also write a short note flagging 3 to 4 moments worth calling out. They send this to Subah before the meeting. She reads it, adds anything she noticed during the week, and picks her three. The format is always: name, one specific action, why it matters. Not a performance review. 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."
Here is exactly how this works. At the start of Month 1 of every quarter, Subah gives the baton to one team she wants the rest of the organization to notice more. No formula. Just her judgment. That team is announced at the start of the closing phase that month: "This month, the food team holds the baton. At the end of today's meeting, they will pass it to whoever they have been watching." This creates a moment the whole team looks forward to throughout the meeting. At the end of closing, the holding team's lead unmutes and names the next team. The holding team passes the baton regardless of how their own month went. Even if they had a tough month, they still hold it and they still pass it. The baton is about noticing others, not about how well you did yourself. A team cannot pass it to the same team twice in a row.
"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. Cross-team learning becomes part of every meeting.
"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 recording submission. The OKR team compiles these into a short teaser and sends it to Subah before the meeting. She reads it as the very last thing she says. It should feel like a preview, not a list of tasks, so it flows as one connected sentence with commas, not a series of announcements with full stops.
"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. This is just a message in the existing group. No special tool needed. 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, one person from the OKR team posts a simple message in the all-hands Lark Group Chat with one prompt. Everyone replies with one photo as a thread reply. This is just the regular Lark group chat with image replies. No special feature. By the time the meeting starts, everyone has already seen something human 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."
The week before the meeting, the OKR team sends each team an anonymous Lark Form. Lark Forms is Lark's built-in forms and survey tool, confirmed to support anonymous responses. The form closes on Friday. Results go to each team lead. One form per team. The OKR team manages sending and collecting. There is only one way to run this, and 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.
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.
"The main channel's best-performing video this quarter got how many views? A: one million, B: two million, C: 3.4 million, D: five million"
"What three words did the food wing choose to describe their quarter?"
"How many new host cities joined the potluck network this quarter? A: three, B: seven, C: twelve, D: seventeen"
"What is one moment from this quarter you will remember, and who from another team do you want to thank?"
All external tools require the host to share their screen on Lark Meeting. None of them require Lark integration.
mentimeter.com, free. Word clouds and live polls. Host shares screen. Everyone types from their own device.
kahoot.com, free. End-of-quarter quiz. Host shares screen. Players join via PIN. OKR team creates quiz from this quarter's actual data.
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. 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. This is the real-time moment of recognition. The slide or 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 documentThe meeting already has most of what it needs. The team is doing real work. The format is thoughtful. The intention to build accountability and connection at the same time is exactly right.
What I want to build on top of that is the feeling. The 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 your team you did not know before.
That is the meeting worth waiting for.
That is what I would work toward.