Town halls have a reputation problem.

Employees show up out of obligation. They sit through a one-way broadcast of information they could have received in an email. They submit questions to a moderated Q&A where the hardest ones get filtered out. And they leave feeling no more informed or connected than before.

It does not have to be this way.

What Town Halls Are Actually For

The first step to running a better town hall is getting clear on what it is supposed to accomplish.

Town halls are not primarily information delivery vehicles. If information transfer were the goal, an email would be more efficient. Town halls are for something email cannot do: creating a shared experience, building culture, and giving people a direct line to leadership.

When organizations design town halls as information broadcasts, they miss the point. When they design them as genuine moments of connection and dialogue, something different becomes possible.

The Design Principles

Start with what people actually want to know. Before every town hall, collect questions from staff. Not to filter them, but to understand what is on people's minds. The questions you receive are a diagnostic. They tell you what is unclear, what is worrying people, and what leadership has not communicated well enough.

Reserve real time for real questions. Not five minutes at the end. Not a moderated Q&A where questions are pre-screened. Actual time for actual questions, including the hard ones. If leadership is not prepared to answer hard questions in a town hall, that is a signal that something needs to change.

Make it a conversation, not a presentation. The best town halls I have seen are the ones where leadership spends more time listening than talking. Where the format invites dialogue rather than performance.

Follow up. If a question comes up that you cannot answer in the moment, say so. Then actually follow up. Nothing erodes trust faster than a leader who says "great question, I'll get back to you" and never does.

The Frequency Question

How often should you hold town halls? Often enough that they feel like a regular rhythm, not a special event. Special events signal that something unusual is happening. Regular rhythms signal that communication is a normal part of how the organization operates.

Quarterly is a reasonable floor. Monthly is better for organizations going through significant change.

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Mali + Co. Studio helps organizations design internal communications experiences that actually build connection and trust. Reach out to talk about what that could look like for your team.