Getting People to Talk: What I've Learned from 20 Years of Skip Levels

I have held many titles over the years. Manager, Director, GM, COO, and now Consultant. The specific title has mattered far less than one consistent reality I've encountered in every organization I've led or worked with: most people have something valuable to say, and most of them aren't saying it.

And it’s not because they don't care. It's because leadership hasn’t created the right conditions for them to speak.

My first real leadership role with meaningful scope was as a Line Manager at Pratt & Whitney Canada in the early 2000s. Operations, not IT, which was a deliberate shift for me. I knew what I didn't know, and I was acutely aware that the fastest way to earn trust and learn the business was to stay connected with the people doing the work. Not just my direct reports. Everyone.  So there I went, spending time on the floor, assembling and deburring parts.  It wasn’t about the process as much as building relationships.

A few years later, at Honeywell, for the 1^st time in my career, I was considered a “2^nd level manager” and the front-line teams had a manager between themselves and me.  The ability (and time) to do that same hands-on approach wasn’t as prevalent here, as the role had other demands.  So, I had to adapt and adopt the approach I’ve seen others use – the skip-level meeting.  I've been running some version of them ever since, and I've changed the format more times than I can count.

What These Meetings Are Not

Before getting into what works, it's worth being clear about intent, because poorly done skip levels are worse than skip levels not done at all.  And yes, I’ve had my share of them.

These meetings are not an invitation to air grievances about a direct supervisor. They are not a complaint session with no solutions attached. They are not an opportunity for individuals to lobby for things that benefit only themselves. And they are not a performance review of the layer between you and the frontline.

Leaders who run skip levels without establishing that framing end up with one of two outcomes: a room full of people saying absolutely nothing of substance because they're worried about what gets back to their manager, or a session that devolves into venting with no productive output. I've sat in both rooms. Neither is useful.

The purpose is straightforward: identify process and culture, and yes, sometimes even growth, opportunities that wouldn't otherwise surface. That's it. When everyone in the room understands that's the intent, the quality of the conversation changes entirely.

The Evolution of the Format

Starting with quarterly skip levels at Honeywell, I eventually moved to monthly. The title and structure have changed multiple times over two decades. Skip level was the standard name for the first several years. Then came the Birthday Club (you get invited in the month of your birthday, which naturally solves the group size problem). Then, Breakfast Club meetings added a bit of informality and a reason for people to show up. Then Donut Drop-ins, which remains one of my personal favourites, mostly because the barrier to attendance approaches zero when there are donuts involved.

Here is what I've learned about format: you need to change it up roughly every two years. Not because the intent changes, but because the format goes stale. People start anticipating the rhythm, and the conversation becomes repetitive and dry. A new structure resets the energy. (To be clear, the donuts do not go stale. The meeting format does.)

I've also learned that group size matters a lot. Put twelve people in a room and ask an open question, and you'll hear from the same three people every time. I can still picture some of them now, 10 years later.  Keep it small. Five to eight is a sweet spot. People who would never speak in a large group will contribute when the room feels more like a conversation than a presentation.  But always ensure you invite enough people so you don’t end up with just one or two showing up.  Unless you get really lucky, and those are highly engaged employees, expect a very short session.

One more thing on who attends.  You need to give everyone a chance to attend; doing so wouldn’t be fair.  Don’t force those who don’t want to attend – I’ve never made them mandatory, just highly recommended (for free food if nothing else).  The sessions must be cross-departmental.  Everyone in attendance from one department will offer a too-narrow lens, which is not what I’m usually seeking.  However, I have, on occasion, tailored meetings to specific people if I sensed a key dynamic happening at a site.  In these cases, inviting informal leaders, who usually had the real pulse of what was going on, proved beneficial.

What the Agenda Actually Looks Like

I've tried elaborate structures, and I've tried winging it. Neither works particularly well. What I've landed on is a simple three-part flow.

A brief business update comes first, good and bad. Not a polished town hall version, an honest one. When leaders share only the wins in these settings, people immediately understand that honesty isn't welcome. Share the challenges too. It sets the tone for the kind of conversation you're trying to have.

An open forum follows. This is where the agenda intentionally steps back, and the room takes over. My job here is to facilitate, not to fill silence. Silence is not failure. Sometimes it takes a minute for the first person to say something real, and the instinct to jump in and rescue the conversation is one worth resisting.  Resist it!  That’s where the food helps.

Finally, if time allows, I bring two or three specific questions or topics I want to get a pulse on. These are things I'm genuinely curious about, not leading questions designed to get a particular answer. The distinction is obvious to everyone in the room.

The Rules That Make It Work

A few ground rules have stayed consistent regardless of what I've called the meeting or what food I've brought.

Everyone gets a chance to speak, and I don't monopolize the time. Bring solutions, not just problems. Share the good, the bad, and the ugly. Keep personal or individual-specific issues out of scope; those belong in a different conversation. And contribute ideas that move the business forward, not just observations about what's broken.

On my end, I commit to two things. Any action I identify gets tracked and followed up on at the next session. Any concern raised gets investigated discreetly, without the trail leading back to the meeting. If people don't trust that second commitment, you'll never hear anything worthwhile again.

The Honest Part

I've walked out of these meetings feeling genuinely energized, sometimes with eight follow-up items and sometimes with one, and the number of actions has never been the measure of a good session. What matters is whether the conversation was real.

I've also walked out feeling like I failed. Not because the topics were hard, but because I facilitated poorly. I let the conversation drift too far off purpose, or I didn't redirect when someone started using the time for something it wasn't meant for. That's on the leader running the meeting, not the people in it.

The other honest truth is that not everything you hear in these sessions is accurate. You're getting individual perspectives, filtered through individual experiences and biases. One person's "this is a systemic problem" is sometimes one person's bad week. Listening carefully doesn't mean acting on everything immediately. It means investigating thoughtfully and following up regardless of what you find.

Why It Still Matters

Twenty years in, I still recommend some version of this to every organization I work with. The format changes. The food changes. The sector changes. The underlying reason doesn't.

There are people in your organization who know exactly where the friction is, who see the process gaps before they become crises, and who have ideas that would genuinely improve things. Most of them are waiting for a reason to believe it's worth saying out loud.

Your job as a leader is to give them that reason, consistently enough that they actually believe it.

The donuts help too. I won't pretend otherwise.