How and why you need to double down on communications

With everything that’s happening this crisis—the remote work, social isolation, and roller coaster for your business, it’s vital that we double down on communications and connection with our team.

This is where your meeting rhythms come in.

There are three key meetings you need to be holding with your team:

1. 1. The daily huddle
   2. The weekly war council (was the leadership team meeting)
   3. Regular 1:1 meetings with your team (and possibly others)

The Daily Huddle

The daily huddle is your chance to check-in and get synchronized with you team. It should be short and sweet, around 7-9 minutes, with a simple agenda:

1. 1. 1. How are you doing?
      2. What’s your focus today?
      3. Daily KPIs
      4. Where are you stuck?

This is not a troubleshooting meeting. Anything people are stuck with should be followed up on after the meeting.

If you’re managing remote teams, the huddle is even more important. Do it every day using a tool like Zoom, Microsoft Teams or Slack. Have everyone turn on video every time—this is about creating connection.

The daily connection will help keep you team tightly knit and increase accountability.

The war council

Your leadership team needs to be meeting (virtually) at least once per week, but preferably more often. We’re on war footing and need to be focused.

This meeting is about getting the right information, deciding on the next course of action and processing any issues.

A simple agenda could look like:

1. 1. 1. Check in
      2. Employee feedback
      3. Customer feedback
      4. Sales update
      5. Financial review/forecasting update
      6. Agile checklist review, prioritization & execution planning
      7. Issue processing

Regular 1:1 meetings

Regular 1:1 meetings are important when things are normal, and absolutely critical during difficult times. I’ve written about running productive 1:1 meetings before—you can read it here.

Remember what’s most important

It’s easy to get caught up in tactics during these meetings. After all, there’s so much chaos. So many things to do and consider.

But this crisis, like any, impacts people first.

“It’s vital that leaders check-in with people, not just roles.” – Mike Knapp

It’s vital that leaders check in with people, not just roles. Ask how each person is doing. Check on their family, their personal lives. The impacts and stresses of this ever-changing environment are broad, the health and welfare of the people you lead must come first.

Only when you know how they’re handling things, should you talk about their role.

We’re only going to get through this crisis if we work together. That means putting people first. The rest will work itself out.