EP58 - Communication Rhythms Series_Daily Pulse

Speaker A: This episode is brought to you by the book Dare to how to grow your business gracefully. The book is written for the courageous business owner, the entrepreneur. You visit daretoscale.combooks now to get your paperback, ebook or audiobook copy. Today,

Speaker B: in continuation with our series of the meeting rhythms, today I'm specifically going to talk about daily huddles or daily pulse meetings or daily touch points. You may have your own, own name for it. The important thing to understand is this happens every single day at an appointed hour for sharing specifics for what's going to happen over the next 24 hours. So why have daily huddles? So the top three clear reasons are to bring in peer accountability. When you commit to verbalizing and saying what you are going to achieve, what your focus is going to be on for the next 24 hours in a collective along with your peers, you are basically, uh, allowing yourself to be held accountable for your own words, for your own commitment, allowing yourself to bring focus into how the next working day or your current working day, depending on when you have your daily, daily huddles to bringing focus, that one sharp laser focus onto your commitment for the day. So pure accountability, number one second is to bring the executive team together or your immediate report. So whether this is a daily huddle happening at the executive level, the middle management level, or the frontline teams or project teams, the fact is bringing your immediate reports that collective intelligence together, so you're bringing more brains into the game to move the company forward or move the project forward one day and one step at a time. So bringing collective intelligence to the daily huddle basically means you're showing up prepared. The third is bringing in some clear communication specifics in communication, showing up and holding, um, not just you, but holding the rest of your team, the rest of your peers accountable for bringing absolute specifics to that daily huddle. So clear clarity in communication, um, is point number three. So three specific advantages of your daily huddle. Now, why would some of the daily huddles not happen? Most people think, well, we see each other every, uh, every day anyway, so why do we need that specific five minutes or seven minutes or 10 minutes, whatever the case may be. Well, I've just told you why. And in most cases also, we are all, we fall easily into the trap of being busy without actually being productive. So we suddenly find ourselves saying words like, oh, uh, we don't have time, extra time now to carve out for this. And I may be, um, also speaking to people who are implementing daily huddles anyway, so none of this matters. So you already know why the daily huddle happens. Now, what happens in a daily huddle? What specifically happens in a daily huddle agenda. But before we get to that, let's talk about when does a daily huddle happen? Daily huddle could happen in the morning, mid morning, afternoon, lunchtime, end of the day. Pick your time. And I know those who work with me quite a bit, they know that I often say I don't care if it happens at 3am if that suits you. Fix a time, preferably an odd time. So if you're saying you do your daily huddle at 9 o', clock, make it 9:03, because 9 o', clock, um, on the hour is just not something that we think in specifics anyway. So when people show up at 9, they usually show up at 9:01, 9:02. But if you say we're starting the daily huddle at 9:03, people are now, um, subconsciously being held accountable for showing up on time. It's an odd time. People tend to check their watches a little bit more when you're going down to that level of, um, detail when setting up the time. So how long a. 30, 45 seconds. Okay, I will push it up to one minute share per person. So assuming you are, let's say 10 people, no more than 10 people. If you can avoid it, that'd be great. No more than ten people, uh, in, in your daily huddle. So one minute per person stretches up to maybe ten minutes. That's it. So short, sharp, immediate sharing with clarity. Um, we've just done who attends now. Who, who is the timekeeper. Now why do we need a timekeeper or who runs the meeting? Now this is a, a rolling role, which means it's not one person who runs the meeting from now to eternity. That role shifts to the person on your right through every week. So you run the meeting for this week and you pass that baton on to the person to your right on week number two, and so on and so forth. And it continues mainly because we then again get into if, just even if it is for that, that daily huddle, we are assuming the role of that listener. Listener with clarity. That leadership role where openly, transparently, with respect, you are holding that huddle to its core purpose, to its agenda. You are urging your team members to speak with, speak in specifics. So, and of course you're keeping to the time anytime you feel somebody is wandering off the track, off the topic, or um, going into, um, generalities, if you will, and I will speak a little Bit more about that, um, just shortly. This is the timekeeper or the, the chairperson if you will of that daily huddle, um, that person's role to bring everybody back on track. This is not a space to find solutions. This is a space to raise a topic that actually requires some thinking for a solution. This is a space for talking about what's going to happen over the next 24 hours. A daily huddle is a very tactical meeting. We are not going into high level strategy in a daily huddle. That's for your various other um, ah, meeting uh, that will come through whether it is a monthly, quarterly, annual. Daily huddle is tactical specifics for the next 24 hours. Now what do you share in that meeting? Three things. Usually it is about what's, what's happening, what and how are you. I'd like to go really into specifics to say share one win. Start us start off the daily huddle on a, on a note that actually picks up everybody and picks you up to a stage where you say I had a win, this is my win. So start by sharing a win. What is the one thing that happened that you made happen that gave you that satisfaction, that joy, that sense of achievement? And it is something that possibly the whole team has been looking forward to. So share a win. Next, share the one thing to achieve in the next 24 hours. I shorten it to Otta. What is the one specific thing that you are going to achieve over the next 24 hours? Now as specific as possible, not just I have a meeting lined up with four clients that means absolutely nothing in the big picture. So I don't know which is that one client, that out of the four whose meeting must happen and why is it critical? What is the specific outcome you're looking for when that meeting happens? So as specific as possible the minute you find generalities happen, this meeting is not going to last beyond a certain period of time. Whether it is six weeks, two months, that meeting is going to become a chore. And then we allow all of us to get into generalities and allow um, that average to set in. So as specific as ah, possible, what is your one thing to achieve out of your million things that you do? Hopefully you don't do million things during the next 24 hours. You do no more than six absolutely critical things that are going to move the company forward. So what we are sharing over here is one thing to achieve over the next 24 hours. And the third, most people um, term it as where are you stuck? What is the one place you are stuck. You can either say that or you can say, what is the one place that you need help with? Remember this is by saying this, what you're flagging to the rest of the team, to the executive team, to the management, to whoever it is in that you're having the huddle with to say, this is an area of attention and I'm highlighting this. So this is a place to highlight the area that needs attention, that needs resolution. But this is not the place to find a solution for that. So three things. Share a win. Share your OTTA One thing to achieve over the next 24 hours and as specific as you can please. And the third is what do you need help with? If at that stage somebody could raise a hand and say, hey, I can actually help with that, Say that and set that separate time to say, after the huddle, let's meet for seven minutes, stand up meeting and say, tell me what exactly you need help with. I think I can help you with abc. Off, off we go onto the next next task. Clear? Now, committing to a daily huddle is one of the most critical things in, in, um meeting. Rhythms overall are the heartbeat of an organization. As, as Vern um often says, the important thing is the daily huddle is where all the disciplines, the routines and the clarity in communication, the specificities actually start. So get that right. The other meetings, as we will continue to talk about, the other meetings in your rhythmic meeting calendar will actually follow from here. So all the best, continue with your daily huddles and you know where to find me when you are stuck. If you need help, I'm, um, here. I speak to you very, very soon.