Attention CEO’s and Business Leaders: This is The Simplest and Most Effective Communication Tool You
With my over seventeen years of being an entrepreneur - with eleven of those having given myself the title of CEO – I’ve seen all kinds of communication tools, methods and apps come and go. But by far the most effective I’ve ever encountered is the humble daily huddle.
The daily huddle is a short (no more than 15 minutes), standing only daily meeting where you discuss the major updates of the last 24 hours, and what you’re going to do in the next 24 hours. I cannot tell you how powerful and effective this simple daily meeting is.
I suggest that the CEO have one daily with his or her team, followed by each department head having a huddle with their respective teams, and so on. Please don’t dismiss the daily huddle before trying it for three weeks at least!
The agenda:
The agenda can vary depending on your organisation but generally the agenda consists of the following points:
What’s up?
Daily metric.
Where are you stuck?
Review one of your values.
What’s up?
Whoever runs the meeting (does not need to be the CEO or team leader, just needs to be someone who is structured) asks everyone on the team this question. Then, one by one, everyone gives a brief update on the last 24 hours and the next 24 hours. Keep the discussion high level and don’t get into too much detail. If a topic is taking up too much bandwidth have an offline meeting later to discuss further.
Daily metrics:
Depending on your business, this could be daily revenue, active users, downloads, website hits, walk-ins, new deposits, or any other metric that is relevant to your business and industry. This gives you an instant snapshot of how the business is doing and allows you to take immediate corrective measures if needed.
Where are you stuck?
Often times team members will be stuck in a project or confused about a certain process. Just asking this simple question will help you uncover any potential bottlenecks in your business and allow you to take corrective action. Of course, team members should be able to express themselves without fear of repercussions. Don’t spend too much time on problem solving, make some suggestions and move on. If the issue warrants it have a separate meeting about it.
Review one of your values.
Reviewing one of your values daily is the best way for you and your team to learn your company’s values by heart. At Falak, we review one component of the Falakonian Way, which shows how we define ourselves, our purpose and our seven Guiding Principles. I cannot tell you how powerful this process is in enshrining your company values (assuming you are living them and following them, which you’re doing, right?)
Other matters:
I suggest you keep the daily huddle at the exact same time every day, and in the same place. If someone cannot attend, then they should call in. It should be with your direct reports and perhaps one level below as well (depending on the size of your organisation). For project teams it should be the entire project team.
Give the daily huddle a try for a few weeks and you’ll wonder how you ever managed without it!