Hello Chasers,
Todays blog posts expands on the topic from last Wednesday – ‘the Daily Huddle’ – a strategy for checking in with your Team to focus on what is important to keep everyone super productive.
It is a 6-step guide for getting you underway and on the path to better productivity in your business that works!
1. Time
Choose whatever time best fits the rhythm of your business – we use 10:00am which allows us to deal with overnight emails, early phone calls and to set our agendas for the day and 4:00pm to see how much progress was made and to setup any flow on tasks for the next day. Make sure you always start the meeting on time, whether everyone is present or not. And, equally important, end on time to emphasise the need to develop efficiency in meetings.
2. Setting
Meet wherever you want to but keep it consistently in the same location and manner. Ours are run online because we have a remote Team in the Philippines. Try to conduct the meeting standing as this will make sure they are kept short.
3. Who’s there
The general rule is to have more people in fewer meetings, rather than fewer people in more meetings. That’s true even if only 10 to 15 participants do most of the sharing
3. Frequency
Generally, frontline employees will be in only one daily huddle, and anyone in management will be in two: one with their direct reports and one with their peers and leader. This is for a larger business, but we have two per day in a small business with a Team of 6 because it keeps everyone engaged with each other – a very important aspect when having a remote Team – as well as keeping a razor sharp focus on what needs to get done.
4. The Chairperson
When starting out, select someone who is naturally structured to keep meetings running on time. The person running the meeting also has the important job of saying, “Please take it offline” whenever people get off on a tangent that doesn’t require everybody’s attention. However, in our case to build confidence and leadership skills we all take turns and do it for the day.
5. The Agenda
Very simple – what are you working on? What will you get done? Where are you stuck?
In the first five minutes, each person spends a few seconds (up to 30) sharing very specifically what they will be focussing on for the day. These should ONLY relate to key activities, meetings, decisions, etc.
The next five minutes are then spent verbalising the daily metrics your company monitors. Look for patterns and trends which can give you a jump on the competition and on your own challenges.
The last five minutes is the most important agenda item. Here, members of your team bring up bottlenecks and concerns that could prevent them from having a productive day. The brutal facts need to be shared, and the leader needs to see these patterns to understand what underlying issues must be addressed. Perhaps, systems (or better ones!) need to be created if it is a repetitive matter.
And there you have it.
Super simple to understand, simple to implement and super productive outcomes that are achievable.
Have a great day!
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