All the best companies work proactively in their down time, or they create down time, to set strategic plans for the upcoming year—and for three and 10 years out.
But then their peak season launches upon them, and they get hit by spring. Mike Tyson taught us this: Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.
When that happens, many of these companies revert to their old ways of doing business: Every man and woman for themselves, every person working harder but not smarter.
This is where leadership must step up and bring calm control to the chaos. The following two huddles are critical to ensuring a productive spring with minimal waste and maximum execution of new systems.
Daily huddle
This is a short, stand-up meeting where the leaders hold all people accountable to their roles and results. In the huddle your people report to each other on the one or two key metrics they’re responsible for each day. The daily huddle is a place where people can ask for help solving problems. It’s a time to remind everyone to stay their lanes and follow the systems. It’s a time to reinforce the “we” feeling. Every person in the company should be in a group daily huddle. Some owners and key managers will lead two different huddles, depending on the company setup.
The leader brings discipline and control, and the company surges ahead through the chaos and in an orderly manner.
Weekly huddle
This is a roll-up of the daily huddle; it’s good for reflecting on the past week and the upcoming week. It’s a sit-down meeting where you can brainstorm, solve bigger problems, review key performance indicator in more depth and focus on important topics like hiring, personnel and other strategic issues that must be managed weekly.
Other reasons for holding daily and weekly huddles are they:
- Increase communication, which is the No. 1 obstacle holding back companies from succeeding and growing;
- Keep the nonnegotiable standards front and center; and
- Allow the leader to keep the vision alive in everyone’s mind.
Jeffrey’s Breakthrough Idea: You may feel you don’t have time for these huddles, but they actually save you time and money, improve communication, help you build and enforce systems and ensure you become a proactive leader running a first-rate, profitably-growing company.
Graphic: Jeffrey Scott
