Meeting Rhythms help to get the organisation flywheel turning, once that momentum has started building up, it helps drive flawless execution by keeping the focus on the priorities and ensuring issues get assessed and resolved. Whereas the daily meeting is about synchronisation, the weekly meeting is a short 1 - 2 hour meeting that focuses the team on the key priority(ies) and allows the team to collaborate on one or two main topics that need to be addressed.

What are they for?

Quite simply to maintain a laser focus on the key priorities and any issues that might impact successfully achieving them.

What are they NOT for?

The weekly meeting is not for updates, that is what the daily huddle is for. The leadership team should come to the weekly meeting well informed and ready to focus on, and tackle any issues impacting on the key priority(its).

Who goes to these meetings?

The Leadership Team.

When are they held?

On the same time and on the same day each week. Set your time and date and stick to it.

What is the Agenda?

Good News

Five minutes of good news, personal and professional from employees and customers. Let people express gratitude as good news creates the environment that will promote collaboration and better problem solving.

Review Quarterly Priorities

10 minutes - Review the status of the quarterly priorities. Are you red, amber, green or supergreen (or however else you want to track your progress on the quarterly priorities. Identify any action required to bring progress back on track or ways to improve progress towards achieving the priorities.

Customer and Employee Feedback

10 Minutes - Review and discuss market and internal feedback from customers, employees and competitors. Identify patterns and trends and determine the best way to address these.

1-2Things

30 - 60 minutes - Address/Solve one or two things around the key priority(ies) that need the focus of the leadership team. Focusing the leadership teams collective intelligence on 1 or 2 important things each week gives the leadership team the opportunity to resolve 50 to 100 things each year which will have a huge impact on the drive towards flawless execution.

Review WWW

Review the accountabilities, actions and agreed dates on the Who, What, When. Ensure that commitment has been made.

One Phrase Close

End the meeting by asking each attendee to sum up how they are feeling with a one phrase (or word) close. It creates a formal end to the meeting whilst giving the leadership a “pulse check” on the health of the team and the organisation.

Outputs

•  1 - 2 resolved “things”
•  Items to be addressed at the monthly meeting
•  Who, What, When - actions arising for the leadership team members. 

An earlier version of this article was published on the 23rd March 2017