Rhythm
“But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead.”
- Paul to the church in Philippi
Time to reset the typeface on our calendars for another year.
We assume you have already cataloged all your successes for the year (hopefully with the input from your team), allowed yourself to feel some pride at what you have accomplished, and have a plan to celebrate and honor your teams for all their hard work.
One of the leaders we work with has already done that step and moved onto an even more challenging one…
…honoring every employee individually for their contribution!
Not only that, he is going to help them set their own goals for 2018, commit to helping them get there and jointly create a “commitment card" for them to review together throughout the year.
How good is that?
Honor what has happened in the past and then push on toward what lies ahead.
This is also the time of year where we encourage everyone to reset their calendars and block their essential meetings for the coming year. One of the key ingredients to sustained organizational success is a healthy meeting rhythm. We call it establishing a meeting governance with our clients. How often you meet, who you meet with and the different agendas for each meeting are incredibly important.
Go ahead and block:
- next year’s annual meeting (2 days recommended)
- next year’s quarterly meeting (1 day recommended)
- monthly updates (1/2 day recommended)
- regular leadership meetings (60-90 minutes, 1-2 times a month)
- any seasonal or ad hoc meetings that are typically needed in the normal rhythm of the year
Block them for the entire year and lock them down. Expect your leadership team to honor these meetings and work around them with other responsibilities, vacations, or travel. You need to do that as well.
Most companies we encounter say that they don’t need formal meetings because their leaders talk all the time throughout the day. We often offer them the same analogy…
Having formal and regular meetings is like a date night or a weekend getaway with your spouse versus the incidental ways you interact and talk daily about the vagaries of running a household. It communicates a commitment to the others, it is room to breathe, a place to talk about more significant things, and think more strategically. It is crucial and necessary.
Whatever goals and strategic plans you have established for the coming year stand a much stronger likelihood of being accomplished if you meet regularly to mark progress, reset targets, and overcome obstacles.
Consider
- Do you have an established meeting rhythm for your leaders (or even your family)?
- Have you blocked those essential and crucial times for the coming year?
- If you don't currently have an established meeting rhythm, what is it costing you?
- What message is it sending your team (or even your spouse) that you haven’t allocated your time in this way?