How To Create A Business Rhythm For Better Collaboration
Companies certainly hold lots of meetings. However, having more meetings does not necessarily equal more collaboration and better teamwork. Also, more meetings does not automatically ensure better coordination and alignment — nor does it ensure that conflicts are resolved easier and faster. We've come across many progressive organizations that have installed a "business rhythm" with a set of fixed, regular meetings to ensure proper collaboration amongst different team members and between different teams. This is how it works.
These business rhythms often include a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly cadence.
So, how does this look in practice? Let me share the example of P4Q, a Spanish self-managing company (of which I recently shared an extensive case study.)
Their rhythm looks as follows:
Yearly meetings
The rhythm starts from one yearly meeting, which they call the "general assembly".
During this meeting, the main strategic goals for the next year are approved by everyone in the organization and formalized into a strategic plan known as the "PIO".
The longer term strategic goals agreed upon in the PIO are subsequently used in the monthly, weekly, and daily meetings to review if the company is still on track to reach its goals.
The entire workforce attends these meetings, which usually take one to several days.
Monthly meetings
The company also holds monthly meetings in so-called "pilot meetings" to plan the goals and workload for the next three months ahead. These are similar to the traditional management meeting and are utilized to make any decision that might impact the entire or larger part of the company.
Pilot meetings are attended by "pilot respresentatives" of all teams that work closely with each other, and usually take approximately two hours. During these meetings, the company's performance over the last month is reviewed on a few relevant parameters (including financials). Pertinent information is then shared among the teams, followed by any necessary adjustments to the goals and planning.
Weekly meetings
Each week the company holds "commitment-planning meetings" to discuss the weekly deliverables of each team (similar to sprint meetings in Agile, for example).
These meetings are attended by the “commitment representatives” of all teams that work closely with each other and usually take approximately one hour. The meetings are held regularly so teams can ensure their commitments are still in line with the company's planning of when orders are supposed to be delivered to clients.
During weekly meetings, the previous week's performance is reviewed, and the goals (commitments) of the upcoming week are agreed upon within teams and between teams.
Daily meetings
Finally, most teams at P4Q hold quick daily meetings to see how they are performing against set goals (similar to stand-up meetings in Agile, for example).
These meetings are attended by all team members of a single team and usually require just a few minutes a day — unless serious issues need to be discussed urgently. During daily meetings, teams determine if the work they are going to do that day is still relevant and adjust their tasks and activities if needed.
Run better meetings
Establishing a business rhythm of regular meetings is just the first part of creating a more collaborative and entrepreneurial workplace.
And the second part? Well, it involves knowing how to actually run these meetings in an efficient and effective way.
Want to know how to do this?
You can learn it all in our recently released on-demand meeting course we've (profoundly) titled "Run Better Meetings" at our Corporate Rebels Academy.
