Sep 1, 2021

How Greenlight Guru Facilitates Results Through Virtual 1:1 Meetings

Greenlight Guru is a Quality Management Software designed specifically for the medical device industry. The software allows device makers to replace outdated paper-based systems with Greenlight Guru. Needless to say, the work that Greenlight Guru does is important.

With over 100 employees adapting to a hybrid culture, it is important that everyone is aligned and has open communication. Alignment and open conversations was particularly important to Greenlight Guru's marketing team.

To have open communication with his team, the Director of Marketing Tim Hickle searched for a solution to facilitate one-on-one meetings, a way to capture issues as they happened and provide more visibility and transparency for all.

The Challenge

Tim manages a team with members across the U.S. and Canada. He believes that the weekly one-on-one meetings are the most important to his team's success by building trust.

It was often difficult to prepare for the meetings. Historically, there were written docs with each agenda that included key talking points and important metrics. However, when things shifted to virtual, agenda items were added to a Google Doc, but much time was wasted searching for those documents. There wasn't a system for their virtual shift, which was a big pain point for the marketing team and its performance.

"These are the most important meetings I have every week because it's my time to build trust with them. And without trust, we have nothing." 
- Tim Hickle, Director of Marketing, Greenlight Guru

How Filo Helped Prepare for Internal Meetings

Centralized Documents and Conversations

Filo gave Greenlight Guru’s marketing team one centralized location for important documents and notes. Each team member has their own 1:1 Room equipped with the Zoom meeting link, key resources, to-do lists and a Chat for them and Tim to collaborate. The Key Resources use a Resource Tile to house content calendars, external events calendars and OKRs to be discussed during their time together.

Transparency of Talking Points

The marketing team's 1:1s are not a project check-in or status update but rather a time to build trust and rapport. The internal meetings also allow Tim to unblock any obstacles for them during their time together. 

Having a 1:1 meeting only once a week means that many issues or roadblocks are put on hold until that particular time spent together. Now, the team uses the Chat feature in Filo to note essential topics as they happen; giving Tim a better insight of critical issues and their severity as it happens. The Chat is also where team members go to note what is at the top of the team members' minds.

Using the Chat in the Room to see key talking points as they come up stops the team from waiting to put the agenda/talking points together at the last minute.

"I'm able to use the Chat functionality to set agenda items. When I do my one-on-one prep for the week, I'm able to see they've already gone into the Chat and said, 'hey, here's the 3 things I want to talk about,' and they're able to do that as it comes up."
- Tim Hickle

Shortened Preparation

The above benefits allow Tim to prepare for the discussions more efficiently. With all documents and items of importance noted in the Chat, the team didn't need extra time to prep for the meeting—giving more time to work. 

"I no longer feel unprepared for a one-on-one. I've been in one-on-ones where I feel unprepared or where my direct report feels unprepared. And then neither one of us is making the best use of this time. Filo helps me feel prepared."
- Tim Hickle

The Results

"My direct reports are kicking. They're getting not only the results I expect from them, but they are over-performing at their jobs."
- Tim Hickle
A view of the teams 1:1 Meeting Floor.

With the platform's customizations, the Greenlight Guru marketing team could configure the space to suit their specific needs, leading to more meaningful conversations. The centralized location for all important documents ensures that nothing slipped through the cracks and gives them an easy way to collaborate, prepare and build confidence with one another.

Interested in a solution to provide more meaningful mentorship for your distributed team? The Filo.co team is here to help!