The Adult Happy Meal Planning Meeting
Has your leadership team spent the appropriate amount of time planning for the tough economic conditions on the horizon? Has your CFO walked through the financials and your cash position? If your revenue falls off a cliff what moves will you make to keep the the organization stable? Your employees and their families are relying on the leadership team to make the right choices to keep your organization afloat through tough times.
In 2008 too many organization were caught off guard when the banks, housing marketing and broader markets collapsed. To avoid making that same mistake in 2022, it would be prudent to assemble your leadership team for a scenario planning meeting.
As symbol of the importance of frugality, our suggestion is that you schedule this as a lunch meeting in-person in a conference room or if you are going to do it over video then plan to cater the lunch to each leaders home. When most hear the term catered lunch they think fancy catering services, but to send the right message, our suggestion is that you order each participant the newly launched McDonald’s Adult Happy Meal. If the meeting is in person, it will look cool with happy meal boxes placed in front of each leader and if it is remote, then Door Dash can show up with happy meals at each participants home. The point is that these happy meals will cost under $15 per participant. They can act as a symbol of austerity for your organization. If the company is going to take prudent action to weather a recession and tough economic conditions, that must start with the leadership team acting appropriately.
McDonald’s is releasing the Adult Happy Meals starting on October 3rd as a nostalgic campaign. Executives will have a light hearted meal together and then jump into the business of preparing your organization for tough time. In a recently released whitepaper, The CEO Playbook: Weathering The Storm, Groove Management highlights ten actions organization’s can take to proactively prepare for tough times. One of the highlighted actions is to travel frugally. In the whitepaper, there is an example of taking an executive out to dinner in New York City to a hotdog stand. That dining on the cheap experience remains in the executives mind as a memorable and fun experience. The Adult Happy Meal Planning Meeting can have the same long term impact.
At Groove Management, we believe that an organization is only as resilient as the people leading it. If your organization is going to not only survive, but thrive through a downturn, it starts with aligning your leadership team and taking the appropriate actions today.
Look for the bonus toy inside the Adult Happy Meal. You might find Grimace or the Hamburgler in your happy meal.
