A Daily Huddle is more important in managing a team than any meeting you’ll ever hold.
Why are meetings so prevalent in today’s corporate world? I’ve been in companies where meetings follow meetings followed by more meetings and before you know it the day is done. Not to mention one-hour meetings that stretch into three hours because either someone really likes to talk or we branch out into multiple topics that have nothing to do with the original meeting.
Tomorrow is more of the same. This is all in the name of ‘leadership’ and ‘productivity.’ A Manager / VP/ Supervisor/ Director/ CEO shows leadership by calling all of ‘their people’ into a room to showcase their leadership by holding a meeting. As often as needed to show that leadership.
I can’t tell you how many meetings I’ve been in where people are assigned tasks that are never completed. Why? Because those tasks are overridden by new tasks in the very next meeting.
If your team is always in meetings when do they have time to actually go and do the work?
A much more powerful means of leadership, enhancing productivity and growing a cohesive team is the Daily Huddle.
Here’s how I run my teams.
Monday morning. Full staff meeting first thing in the morning, no more than one hour. Review the week coming up and address any issues or concerns.
Tuesday - Friday. Daily huddle over coffee, tea or whatever you’re drinking first thing in the morning. 10-15 minutes max. A casual check-in going around the circle to check on what each person is working on and address any concerns or needs. Catch up on reactions to the latest episode of whatever we’re all watching.
Based on that huddle I can make adjustments to the schedule, resources and determine if I need to jump in and get my hands dirty to help complete tasks. Other team members can weigh in with solutions in the huddle vs. individuals coming to my office to talk. We end up with a more efficient workflow that creates much better end products than individuals coming to me and then having to come up with solutions for each issue.
And you’ve only taken up 15 minutes of their time. No more meetings, no more “let’s all get together and discuss this issue for the next two hours.” 15 minutes, every single day and you’ve got all the information and solutions you need for about 80% of your normal business operations.
The Daily Huddle also creates a very strong team dynamic. Because they’re casual, these huddles help the team to learn more about each other in a much shorter amount of time than any ‘planned company gatherings.’ They’re actually fun and folks enjoy getting caught up with each other.
Furthermore, the Daily Huddle eliminates the need for “let’s review last week” at the Monday meeting. There’s no need to review last week, we’ve all been caught on a daily basis.
Keep your meetings to an absolute minimum. Keep them focused on the topic. Keep the running time as short as possible. Then huddle up with your team every morning for maximum efficiency and output.