I get asked all the time what is the number one thing a company can do to leverage the Rockefeller Habits and tighten up execution. Daily and Weekly meetings are often unstructured, boring and push aside in most companies but are the quickest way to solve problems quickly and get more work done. I’m assuming you ARE holding your Monthly, Quarterly and Annual meetings.… right? Your meeting rhythm is like the heartbeat of the organization that supplies blood and oxygen to the rest of the company. Without it, issues don’t get uncovered, processes don’t get cleaned up, execution/accountability fades away and key strategic initiatives and adjustments don’t get made. In short, hundreds or of decisions that should be leveraging the collective minds of the organization on an annual basis just never happen. Your company’s success can be equated to the sum total of all the decisions, both good and bad, that happen in a year.
The existing or desired growth rate of the company should determine the intensity of the meeting structure. A company with 20% annual growth should treat each 90 days like it is a year. A company with 2X per year growth should treat one month as a year.
Each meeting starting with the Daily has a specific purpose and feeds up into the next meeting type. The meeting types replace each other and are not on top of each other. An example is in the week there is a Monthly scheduled, there is not a Weekly.
Here is an overview of each meeting and the overall role they play:
Daily (DE-hassle) Meeting – (Execution)
The primary objectives for the DE-hassle meeting is for Problem Identification and Behavior Measurement. This meeting should be a ‘stand up’ meeting, should start and stop exactly on time, and should last 5 to 15 minutes. It’s best to start at an odd time like 9:09AM. The meeting format is as follows:
- What’s Up? Go around the room and in about 30 seconds per person, discusses what is on their agenda in the next 24 hours to move the company forward. Be careful about being too general in the information share. If you are working on a proposal for a client, what client? Why is it important? What is the dollar amount, etc? If you are the Moderator of the DE-hassle meeting, make sure you ask clarifying questions and dig into generalities. The issues you are looking for usually lurk right beneath the surface. Moderators, please ask “did anyone hear anything that you have a question or comment on before moving on to Daily Measures?”
- Daily Measures. Ideally, each person should have 2 to 3 daily measures that give the group a good idea of how the company is doing. The measures are data points and/or ratios that can be quickly shared. This is where general trends are developed and is an early warning radar to catch issues early while they are easy to solve. Examples are, # of sales call made, Net Promoter Scores, A/R Days, etc. Or numbers that track how well the company is living it’s Brand Promise.
- Stucks? A key component in healthly DE-hassle meetings is the willingness of each person to share a ‘stuck’ if one exists. A stuck can be personal (they usually are) and don’t need to impact the rest of the group. What is the rock in your shoe? What has you frozen, unable to move forward in a project? Are you too swamped to get to something important? Turn each issue into a Process problem and not a People problem. Otherwise, the group will not share their
Stucks as they will fear being attacked. Moderators, please jump in immediately if you hear the conversation turn into a People issue and call a time out to re-adjust the flow. If the Stuck only impact two people, quick ask them to discuss after the meeting.
Weekly (Week-In-Sync) Meeting – (Execution)
All of the major issues uncovered in the DE-hassle meetings should roll up into the Weekly meetings. Weekly’s should be thought of as Issues Oriented and a Strategic Gathering of the company leaders. 1 to 2 hours depending on the size of the group is all the time that is needed to keep the pulse moving. The suggested format for the Weekly is as follows:
5 minutes: Good news only. Each person shares something good that has happened personally and professionally in the last week. This is a great way for the team to become more comfortable with each other and get each person in the Alpha state which is great for learning and problem solving.
10 minutes: Go around the room and report on KPI’s, Smart Numbers, Ratios and data points that provide insight into the future. Take note of anything that is out of line.
10 minutes: Discuss any customer, prospect or employee feedback. The management team exists to solve problems so make sure a Process versus People issue environment is enforced. No feedback on a routine basis is much worse than negative feedback. It’s hard to fix what the team does not know about.
30 minutes: Discuss a Rock or single issue in detail and use the collective intelligence to maximize the opportunity, solve a problem or refine/develop a process. Remember success is the sum total of decisions made in a company and this is critical thinking time to move the company forward. And by going deep in the Weekly, the Monthly meetings don’t get bogged down in things that could have been handled weeks earlier.
5 minutes: Complete the Who – What – When matrix with the output from the 30 minute discussion. Also review the previous meeting Who – What – When’s and make any necessary adjustments.
Close: Each person closes the meeting by sharing one word or short phrase concerning their reaction to the Weekly meeting. This is a great way for the team to get a sense of where everyone is mentally and emotionally.