The Right Meeting Rhythm for Your Business Coaching Clients
Do you have clients who are struggling to get aligned with their teams? This is one of the most common reasons clients engage a business coach–and often, the solution lies in helping them examine their meeting rhythm. An effective meeting rhythm will help clients stay aligned, productive, and cohesive as they work together.
An effective meeting rhythm will help clients stay aligned, productive, and cohesive as they work together.
So what’s the recommended team meeting rhythm you should introduce to clients?
Annual Off-Site Retreat
Every year, the team should go offsite for at least one day, sometimes two days. I usually suggest doing this meeting in October or November (or, if your client operates on a different fiscal year, have them schedule it for early in Q4). While there, the team will review the work completed in the previous year and reset their annual goals to drive toward the three- to five-year targets the organization is pursuing. In addition, have them loosely sketch out the objectives for each quarter in the upcoming year. The management team should attend. Often, it makes sense to have this retreat professionally facilitated.
Quarterly Review
This is a four- to eight-hour gathering to review the team’s progress toward their annual goals. The team should evaluate the previous quarter’s progress and set actions for the upcoming quarter. This should be an “all-hands” meeting, to get the entire team on board.
Monthly Meeting
On a monthly basis, the team should meet for about four hours to review whether they’re making progress or falling behind, and whether they’re hitting their numbers. If the team is struggling, you may need to urge your clients to change the actions they set at the beginning of the quarter in order to meet the annual goals. This meeting is for the management team.
Weekly KPI Review
This is a weekly, two-hour meeting in which the team should: review big news from the week, look at weekly KPIs, and talk about who’s doing what and when. This is a meeting for the management team
Daily Huddle
Daily huddles are 10- to 15-minute stand-ups within teams. Here, the agenda is breaking news, KPIs, and help with any urgent bottlenecks. In growing organizations, I suggest “cascading” huddles. This means that the management team should have a huddle, and then hold another huddle with all their direct reports. When this is working properly, a decision can be made by the executives on a weekly, or even daily, basis–and by the end of a single day, the news has filtered down through the entire organization. When a business is growing, there’s no better way to keep an organization functioning effectively.
This simple meeting rhythm can help businesses become more nimble, cohesive, and productive. Introduce it to your clients and enjoy the results!
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