What would Oprah do? Lessons for Internal Communicators on re-thinking the town hall

The final week of festival season took me to the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, where I met Oprah (and yes, I'm still smiling about it). 

Sadly, there were no free cars for the audience this time but she did give us the gift of a masterclass in storytelling, audience insight and communication.

At the heart of Oprah’s keynote was a simple message: great communication starts with understanding your audience. As internal communicators, we know this instinctively. But it made me reflect on whether we always do this, particularly when it comes to the Town Hall/All Hands meeting.

Is it time to rethink the town hall?

Ask colleagues to think about the last town hall meeting they attended.

Was it something they looked forward to? Or simply another meeting they felt obliged to attend? How often do we design these events around what employees genuinely want to hear, rather than what leaders want to say?

I've seen too many built around a leadership agenda agreed months in advance, with a few interactive elements bolted on at the end, usually in the form of a Q&A.

When communication professionals ask me how to inject more energy into a tired town hall format, my answer is usually the same: become more curious about your audience. 

After last week, though, I have a new answer.

Think about what Oprah would do

In the early days of The Oprah Winfrey Show, audience engagement largely meant signing autographs after filming. One day, when she couldn't do that, she simply spent time talking and listening to members of the audience instead. Those conversations eventually became a focus group. Future programmes weren't shaped by what producers assumed viewers wanted. They were built around the issues, questions and experiences people were actually living through. Imagine if more town halls were designed in the same way.

Hybrid working has fundamentally changed the town hall. Leaders are now speaking to audiences spread across offices, homes and multiple time zones. In many organisations, the town hall has more in common with a live television programme than a traditional meeting. That creates a new challenge. You're no longer engaging the people sitting in front of you. You're trying to engage everyone watching through a screen, often while they're competing with emails, Teams messages and countless other distractions.

How to improve the town hall experience

Employees consume engaging, audience-centred content every day. They naturally compare workplace communication with the best experiences they have elsewhere. So how do you turn your Town Hall from another calendar invitation into something employees genuinely want to attend? Here are five tips:

1. Start with what matters to employees

Use employee listening, pulse surveys and feedback to identify the topics people most want addressed, then build your agenda around those.

2. Don’t make it the CEO show

The CEO matters, of course, but if every town hall relies on one senior voice, it can start to feel like a broadcast rather than a shared conversation. Bring in different leaders, subject experts, customer voices and employee stories so the event reflects the whole organisation, not just the view from the top.

3. Think like a television producer

Break the session into shorter segments. A change of pace, format or voice every few minutes helps maintain attention, particularly for remote audiences.

4. Make remote employees part of the experience

Remote colleagues shouldn't feel like spectators observing someone else's meeting. Give them equal opportunities to contribute through live questions, polls and discussions, and acknowledge their input throughout the session, not just during the final five minutes.

5. Measure success

The best television programmes leave audiences talking afterwards. The same should be true of your town hall. Rather than measuring success purely by attendance figures, ask what employees remember, what they learned, what conversations continued afterwards and whether they left feeling more informed, connected and confident.