How To Lead Meetings That Actually Drive Business Growth

In This Episode

• Intro

  G'day and welcome to the Trade Business School Podcast.

  Today we're going to be talking about how to manage a management team. Specifically we're going to be talking about the correct meeting cadence. There's three main things that are important when you are leading or managing a management team in your business. The first one is you need to have very clear role descriptions. The second one is you need to have metrics and KPIs for those particular roles. And the third one is you need to follow a good meeting cadence.

  The third point is what we're going to focus on today. Now, a lot of trade business owners when they're building a management team make a really critical mistake when it comes to the weekly meetings with their management team.

  And I did this, and if I reflect back on when I was growing my business, I was around the $3 million level. I'd heard somewhere that you needed to be having weekly meetings with your management team. So I was doing that. We didn't really have an agenda. We didn't have any metrics, and one of the biggest mistakes that I made continually was I would cancel or postpone the meeting because I had something more important to do.

  Now, if you are doing that, stop doing it right now. It's one of the worst things that you can do as a leader. Quite often you will feel that you are too busy because you've got emails to respond to, or you've got quotes that need to be done, or you've got a site visit that you need to attend, or you've got a new client meeting that you want to go to. But the most important thing that you should be doing every week and every morning huddle is attending those meetings so that you are giving your managers the time they need.

  Think about it from their perspective. If you are one of those leaders who's continually cancelling meetings at the last minute, what message does that send to them? What do they start thinking of you? They'll start thinking that you don't value their time, so why should they value your time? If you don't value their time, they're going to stop valuing the time of the people that they manage and some of the clients that they deal with.

  So it's imperative that if you are the leader of this business and you've got a management team, that you show up when you said you were going to show up. Stop cancelling. Start attending the meeting. Start making these meetings the number one most important thing that you do every week, every month.

• The Meeting Cadence Overview

  The first main meeting of the year is the annual planning session. You have one of those a year. Then you are going to have three to four quarterly reviews. Sometimes you don't have the fourth because it's the end of the year, or you're going to be doing it in January. You're going to have 12 monthly meetings. And you're going to have around about 40 weekly meetings.

  Now, I know you're going to say that there's 52 weeks in the year. Why aren't we having 52 weekly meetings? The reason for that is the monthly meeting is actually the weekly meeting with a slightly different agenda. It's not an additional meeting.

  On top of the weekly meeting you are going to have a whole bunch of morning huddles. You have a morning huddle for every single day except the day that you have the weekly meeting.

  To spin that around in a way that makes a lot more sense: you're going to have an annual planning session in January. You're going to have a morning huddle every single day of the week, except the day you have the weekly meeting. You're going to have a monthly meeting on the first week of a new month, but this is just replacing the weekly meeting you would have normally had. Then you're going to have a quarterly review at the end of each quarter.

• The Annual Planning Session

  For my clients, this annual planning session is something that we do together, and it takes between three to six hours depending on the business. But if you've got a management team, I strongly suggest that your annual planning session is done over a weekend.

  You find somewhere nice to go, you take them away. It serves two purposes. The first purpose is you get to do a review of the previous year and plan the goals for the current year. The second purpose is you get to do some team bonding, and you're going to come back to work at the start of the next week very clear on where the business needs to go and who needs to do what to get there.

  Who chairs it? The business owner. When is it done? Preferably January. It's done in person, preferably offsite. It takes a full weekend.

  The agenda: after you've all got together and broken the ice, you are going to do a review of the previous year. Every manager has to come up with a review of their sector. Once that's done, you're going to go through your number one thing from last year, your theme, your core values, and your major issues. As a team, you're going to traffic light each one. Green is resolved or hit the target. Red is failed in that area.

  Once you've done that, you're going to do a review of the annual goals you set for the previous period. Revenue, gross profit, net profit, and cash are always the first four goals. Underneath that there can be a whole range of goals around growth, clients, quote conversion, structure, new employees.

  Once that reflection is finished, you move into setting the goals for the current year. Start with the main issues you are dealing with, land on three and have a strategy to solve each. Once you've done that, set the goals, then strategise on how you are going to achieve them. Review all KPIs across your business sectors. Then commit to the number one thing for the year and come up with a theme that attaches to it.

• The Morning Huddle

  I actually think the morning huddle is the most important meeting that you have. As the name suggests, it's held every morning, except the day that you have the weekly meeting. Who chairs it? Probably not the owner. Pick somebody in your business who is really good with keeping time and is really structured, because this person is going to make sure that the people in the meeting don't waffle on.

  Where is the morning huddle held? Online. Who's it with? The entire management team. And it lasts for five to ten minutes. This is not a long meeting. It's meant to be short, sharp, and concise. There's no documentation required.

  The agenda I recommend: mention anything of importance or interest from yesterday, what you are working on today, and any issues that you have. One of the big dos with the morning huddle is you must be specific. And a big don't: don't waffle on or try to solve any of the issues that are coming up.

  To give you an example: if I was the estimator in this business and it was my turn in the morning huddle, I would say something like: "I had a meeting with X, Y, Z regarding the tender we submitted last month, and I've got some good news. They've given us the verbal go ahead. It's about a $1.2 million project. They're sending the contracts through today. Today I'm working on closing out a bunch of small quotes. The issue I've got at the moment is I've got two more tenders closing at the end of this week and I haven't got time to do them. I'd like to have a chat to see if there's one we can drop out of." That's it. Short, specific, done.

• The Weekly Meeting

  The weekly meeting is held in person or online with the entire management team, and it goes for about 60 minutes. I use a document called the Situation Room. The Situation Room document has a dashboard, it has the metrics, and it has a forecast profit and loss.

  The agenda: a check in for everybody in the room, one thing positive personally and one thing positive about the business. After that, review all of the metrics for the different sectors of the business. Review the goals, which should be either on track, off track, or completed. If anything is on track, it does not need to be discussed. Then review the quarterly rocks. Anything on track or completed does not need to be spoken about.

  After that, discuss issues in the business. You can only be resolving three issues in a business at a time, so there's only space for three of them. After the issues, move to discussion points that anyone has added prior to the meeting. Then review to-dos with dates for accountability. Then housekeeping, such as upcoming leave within the management team.

  The meeting is finished by everybody having a one word or one sentence close.

  One of the very important parts of this meeting is who chairs it. Most business owners like to chair this meeting themselves, but I think that's a mistake. If you nominate a different person each week to chair the meeting, the chances of the discussion around the table increasing is high.

• The Monthly Meeting

  The monthly meeting is not an additional meeting. It is actually just a weekly meeting with a slightly different agenda. What's different? It still goes for 60 minutes. It's still in person or online. But you have some additional reporting. You're going to be looking at how the previous month went, how you're tracking for the quarter, how particular goals may have finished up for the month, and now that they've been completed, you might need to set something new.

• The Quarterly Review

  Generally what I recommend is taking the management team out for dinner once a quarter. You're going to review how that particular quarter went. You'll have a spreadsheet where you've got your goals with their target and their actual, and you're going to go through and traffic light each one. The same thing with the three main issues and the quarterly rocks. Traffic light them all, see how you actually went.

  Once you've done all of that, you are going to set the goals for the next quarter, and each of these quarterly goals should align with the main goal for the year that you set at the annual planning session.

• Why This Works

  Now, I know a lot of what I've said here today might sound incredibly boring. And if it does sound boring, it's probably because it is. But it doesn't mean that it's not important.

  One of the really good things about this particular meeting cadence structure, the morning huddle, the weekly meeting, the monthly meeting, the quarterly review, and the annual planning session, is that it's cumulative. The more you do it, the better it becomes. The more you do it, the more united the management team becomes, and the more you understand exactly what's going on in your business.

  I used this particular method when I set the goal of growing my business from $3 million to $6 million. I had a realisation that to get from $3 million to $6 million, it wasn't going to be me doing the work. It was going to be the management team. And this particular meeting cadence was crucial in us going from that $3 million to that $6 million.

  I hope you find some of this helpful.