I don’t mean this in the sense of how well you move on the dance floor. I’m talking about in your business. Do you have a rhythm within your organization that keeps everyone in sync? Do you know the importance of rhythm?
Let me start from the beginning. Rhythm is not limited to the sound of music. Rhythm is the cadence and flow applied to any kind of movement or activity. It’s natural and instinctive. If you go back to childhood and think of nursery rhymes, they don’t just rhyme, they are rhythmic. You don’t have to think about what comes next because you already know.
This is key in the business world. Having regular, rhythmic meetings that keep your team clicking to the same pulse will allow a connect and sync to occur, thus keeping people on the same page and helping to prevent important issues from falling through the cracks.
Here at Efficience we have set a rhythmic process that consists of: a 10 minute daily meeting (what we call a huddle), a 1 hour weekly meeting, a 3 hour monthly meeting, an all day quarterly meeting and a 2 day annual meeting.
Our daily huddle provides an update on each person’s key tasks for the day, a quick review of our metrics, and a chance to present any blockages that are preventing us from moving forward.
Our weekly meeting is set aside for reviewing each person’s weekly steps towards reaching the company goals that we set in our quarterly meeting, reviewing weekly metrics, and open discussion on the blockages presented in the daily huddles.
Our monthly meeting replaces the weekly meeting for that week, and in addition to everything covered in the weekly meeting, we add time for learning and a strategic review.
At our Quarterly meeting, we primarily focus on planning the coming quarter by reviewing our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT). We outline the top 3 things that we are going to achieve in the coming quarter and how each person will contribute to meeting those goals. Over time we learned that this process was key to executing our goals, and in turn built a software platform around these ideas to help keep us organized and focused (FlockGPS).
Our annual meeting works much like the quarterly meeting, except we are planning for the year instead of the quarter. We spend significantly more time on strategy and engage in in-depth discussions around our 3 to 5 year opportunities and threats.
A few books that are great for learning and implementing better meeting processes are Death by Meeting by Patrick Lencioni and Mastering the Rockefeller Habits by Verne Harnish.
In music, there is rhythm from beginning to end. It may change throughout, but it’s always there. In business, rhythm can create a smooth foundation to which everything else sits on top of, keeping everyone in time and allowing them to focus on the task at hand.