Running a successful AGM: MMB 2020

January 28, 2020

How to run a successful Annual General Meeting (AGM)

Some people find AGMs boring, some people even dread going to it. Imagine sitting through hours and hours of presentation every year, listening to the same few speakers presenting the same few pieces of information… I am pretty sure you will not enjoy it. Every year, we hold our annual general meeting, also known as Make Maha Better (MMB). So, what’s new this year? And how do you make sure your AGM is different and better each time?

1. Change your location

Having a change in location annually creates freshness and spices up your AGM. At Maha, we choose a different country each year to hold our AGM; usually, we select from countries where we have an office in. This year, we held our AGM at Frasers Place Puteri Harbour, Johor Bahru, Malaysia.

A change in location also means that your people have the liberty to enjoy the local culture, eat local food, and check out local places of interests, hence creating memories together. Here are some of the local dinners we had during AGM:

嘉林海蕃村海鲜 (seafood by the sea)
Straits View, Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia

Soon Seng Heng – Peranakan Living (Peranakan food)
39, Jalan Eko Botani 3/5, 79100 Gelang Patah, Johor, Malaysia

2. Talk Show, Panel Discussion, and Games

Instead of presentations, why not try repackaging it into talk shows, panel discussions, or even games? Of course, we are not saying that you should entirely do away with presentations, but maybe you could incorporate something interactive.

As a form of introducing our framework to guide people into delivering our mission statement, we hosted a game show where we invite the audience to guess which activity the country representative is sharing about. And the winning team gets some attractive prizes too!

We also included a small group activity, helping the leaders to brainstorm what are some of the gaps (in terms of leadership and mentor-ship) they faced, and how to overcome it. It was indeed a fruitful sharing session from all the groups!

For our sales presentation, we invited the country representatives to sit in a panel to discuss about their country’s performance with the help of the facilitator. As such, important questions from the floor were addressed and nope, the audience did not fall asleep!

We also invited our supplier, OCSiAl, to give us a talk about their newest innovation.

3. Cocktail Tables and Refreshments

Don’t forget to have light refreshments during the AGM! Cocktail tables allow your attendees to network and catch up with each other over food and drinks. Also, allowing them to eat and stand at the cocktail tables while listening to presentations keeps them awake!

4. Ted Talks from Leaders

How about getting your leaders to share an interesting story about themselves, or their journey with your company? It’s easier for people to relate to stories, examples, and case studies. It makes people remember them. We invited some of our 2nd-generation pioneering leaders to share with us a quote or story of themselves.

5. Bonding Activities

Besides presentations, it is also important to incorporate some group bonding activities in a casual setting. This year we made use of some interesting props such as glow sticks and glow-in-the-dark markers for each group to design a board of their identity.

After that, we went to this glow-in-the-dark golf obstacle course where players enter in teams and complete the various obstacles together.

Putt N Glow
No. 54 Jalan Eko Botani 3/6, Taman Eko Botani, 79100 Iskandar Puteri, Johor, Malaysia

As the start of a new year, we also bought fireworks to light up the sky!

6. Award Ceremony

AGM is also a good time to show recognition for your people, since it’s one of the rare times where many are gathered in the same place. Every year, we give our appreciation to those who have served more than 5 years, and also award GEMs to people who has shown helpfulness and gone out of the way to help others.

7. Create your own Film Festival

What about, getting everyone to come together and develop a film that represents your company most? At Maha, we have our annual Maha Oscar where we get the different offices to create a short 5-min-or-less film that showcases our TRIP values. A voting session is adopted to decide the winner!

Check out the rest of our films on our YouTube playlist!

8. After-party

Of course, every gathering calls for a celebration, right? Post-event parties are a good way to relax after a long day of presentations and sitting down, and drinks and games are a must too!

We also had a catwalk session and chemistry game to determine the winners of: Mr and Miss Chemistry, Mr Maha, and Ms Maha!

9. Schedule and Time Management

Most importantly, how you schedule your activities affects the attention span and memory of the audience. One common mistake of running an AGM is that most of the time the presentations or activities are scheduled back-to-back for the entire day, where audience find it straining to sit through hours and hours of presentation. Remember to allow time for networking or short breaks for people to catch up on their work or phone calls. Alternatively, you can schedule the important parts of the AGM in the first half of the day, and games or bonding activities in the later half!

Overall, our AGM was pretty successful; of course there is always room for improvement! Thank you everyone for making this a success yet again!