Transform Your Team Dynamic Using Meeting Rhythm

One of the keys to developing a high-functioning team is to ensure that all members of that team communicate effectively and efficiently with one another. And one of the best ways to do that is to set up a series of well-planned, purpose-driven meetings so that your team can move and groove in rhythm with the rapidly-changing beats of your business.

After a substantial amount of trial and error, we’ve developed a practical and powerful meeting rhythm blueprint - based on the Rockefeller habits - that can transform your team into a productivity powerhouse! 

Let’s get started!

Why Do You Need a Meeting Rhythm?

Let me begin by saying that meetings can be - and often are - a gigantic waste of everybody’s time. This happens when meetings are poorly planned in terms of timing, attendees or purpose. And let’s face it; most of them are!

Having said that, a strategically planned rhythm of meetings can transform your team dynamic, and set it up well and truly for success.

The two key elements of an effective meeting rhythm are regularity and structure. In other words, your meetings should happen on a consistent, predictable schedule, and each meeting should to have a deliberate, well-defined purpose to it.

Let’s take a quick look at the meeting rhythm strategy.

Daily Watercooler

The daily watercooler - also known as the daily check-in, stand-up or huddle - is the fulcrum of any successful meeting rhythm. The idea is to bring toegether all of your direct reports for a short period of time everyday to discuss the upcoming day's priorities and roadblocks.

The reason this meeting is called a watercooler is because it is intended to be so quick and brief that you can have it while standing at your office watercooler! Allocate approximately 2-3 minutes per person, and no more than 15 minutes overall.

Go around the table - or, rather, the watercooler - and give each participant a chance to:

• Share major news or big wins from the previous day

• Set out key priorities and deliverables for the upcoming day

• Discuss any roadblocks or challenges they may be facing so that you can help clear them out

This will help your team stay dynamic and proactive rather than lethargic and reactive. These 15 minutes will help save your and your team’s time by dramatically minimizing the chances of random, ad-hoc requests and interruptions throughout the day.

Weekly Tactical

The daily watercooler is a great way to focus on the here-and-now, i.e., the micro level. The weekly tactical, on the other hand, allows you to zoom out slightly and track how well you’re doing on your broader strategic initiatives, i.e, the macro level.

For about an hour each week, bring together all your direct reports, and if needed, some members from your extended team or other key collaborators, to track progress on upcoming deliverables of your strategic plan. For maximum impact, focus on deliverables that are due in the next four to six weeks, and ask team members to share detailed updates on those items, including current status, projected timelines, and potential areas of concern.

To get the most out of this meeting, be sure that all participants can easily view the overall strategic plan, and can update their progress on initiatives assigned to them in real-time.

This is also a great place to tap into the collective intelligence of your team to solve problems that you simply couldn’t get around to solving on your daily watercoolers due to their run-and-gun nature.

Weekly One-to-One

Next up, we have the weekly one-to-one meeting.

As the name implies, use the weekly one-to-one meeting to meet each one of your direct reports individually once a week, for anywhere between 30 to 60 minutes a pop. 

While the daily watercooler is mostly transactional, and the weekly tactical is mostly, well, tactical, the weekly one-to-one is more personal in nature. Use this meeting to listen for potential issues lurking on the horizon, to seek and deliver feedback, and most importantly, to provide personalized guidance and coaching.

Of course, you may still discuss current priorities and deliverables, but keep that to an absolute minimum, and use this meeting primarily to connect with your direct reports at a more personal level.

Monthly All-Hands

As the name implies, the monthly all-hands meeting is where the entire group - whether it is a business unit, a corporate function or a geo - comes together once a month, for about 60 to 90 minutes.

This is the ideal platform to discuss evolving priorities and key strategic topics - ones that will have a real-world impact on your business in general, and on the people attending this meeting in particular. Encourage participants to brainstorm, present ideas and debate one another in pursuit of the optimal long-term solution.

Each meeting should have no more than one or two such topics, which you should identify and communicate at least a week in advance, so that participants have enough time to think and prepare for the subject at hand.

If, per chance, you don’t have such a topic to discuss in a particular month, use this meeting as an opportunity to deliver training and share best practices with the group.

Half-Yearly Horizon Jam

Once every six months, convert your monthly all-hands meeting into a horizon planning jam session. Spend a short amount of time to walk through the key results, wins and misses of the preceding six months, and use most of your time on this jam to set up key initiatives for the upcoming six months. 

As with the monthly all-hands, allow participants to knock their heads together in pursuit of identifying initiatives that’ll move your group forward in the next six months. Help your team understand that the items you discuss and agree upon here will form the bedrock of your activities and conversations for the foreseeable future.

Due to the sheer quantity and nature of items you’re likely discuss in this meeting, you may need to break it out into two jam sessions in back-to-back weeks. If you do plan to break it out, be sure to schedule these sessions within a week of one another in order to keep the momentum going.

We find that the months of June and December are generally the ideal months to have this meeting, but your mileage may vary.

Conclusion

So, there you have it. That is the Insightlopedia-recommended, nay, prescribed meeting rhythm strategy. 

It may all seem a bit overwhelming, especially if you aren’t used to having a meeting rhythm, but it is one of those habits that’ll become second nature to you in very short order, especially when you see the positive, tangible impact it has on your team dynamic and productivity.

To get the most out of your meeting rhythm, get your team members to do most of the talking, but be an active participant and contributor in these discussions, and not just a meeting facilitator.

Of course, you’ll likely find that not everybody is able to attend every meeting they need to, every time. Understand that this is along expected lines, and be prepared to make allowances for individual exceptions. The beauty of a robust meeting rhythm is that as long as most people are able to attend most of the meetings they need to, most of the time, you’re golden! 

They key, then, is to just get started with it and pretend like deep down you’ve always believed in it!