Communication Rhythms in Uncertain Times

Let me start by saying that we, as humans, are resilient. We have all been through hardships before, and by definition if we didn’t navigate and overcome those uncertain times, we wouldn’t be here today… Use this to propel you through the current atmosphere and to remember what your team needs from you.

It is of the utmost importance to be communicating regularly with your teams through each and every step of this pandemic and what it is doing to the economy, and most significantly, how it is affecting your business. Your whole organization is desperate to hear what you are doing as the leader and are looking to you, and your leadership team, for answers. To keep yourself and everyone else feeling informed, daily and weekly rhythms of communication should be in place, all the while leaning on your Core Values and Core Purpose to drive results and morale.

After sitting in on over 500 daily huddles/stand ups, over 100 weekly meetings, and working with CEOs and their leadership teams from around the world, here are the best practices I have found:

Virtual Meetings

We all are on more virtual meetings than we ever thought we would be. Here are some tips to help keep everyone feeling connected and keep the team on track.

• Video on! - We all know that some people will be working in their PJs and some will be in work clothes… regardless of what you are wearing, having your video on makes people feel more connected to you, which is key in times of uncertainty and working remotely.

• Connected audio headphones - The audio with connected headphones is 10x better than using bluetooth connection. The audio on bluetooth is often delayed and can feel like a constant interruption.

• Tinker toys - Yes, you heard me right! If your team is going to be on a meeting for a while, order tinker toys to be sent to their house. It is a stress reliever. We love “PlusPlus Blocks”. This keeps people in a creative space too! Some people may not “play” with them and that is okay, the caring gesture is what matters most.

• Mute audio upon joining a meeting - Muting your audio when you join a meeting and throughout, unless you are talking, keeps the background noise to a minimum. Everyone wants to be able to hear what is going on. The less dog barks, food crunching, and paper shuffling, the better.

• Breaks - Take frequent breaks. It is hard to stay focused and engaged in a virtual meeting. Give them time on their own to do what they need to do and also insert movement in other breaks. You can have someone lead the groups through some exercises or stretches to get their blood flowing. 

Daily Huddles (15 minutes)

Most teams now have some sort of daily huddle. The real questions are; is it informative or just a waste of time? And are you getting what you need from it or just everyone else’s to-do lists? The agenda that we see work to elicit relevant information goes as follows:

• Good News/What’s Up? - Share some wins! Share stories surrounding how people are living your organization's Core Values and Core Purpose! Then share what is relevant that the team needs to know from your realm. Not just what they need to know but also how it will affect them or why they need to know that. Be specific and keep it brief.

• Metrics Update - Quick touch on your individual KPIs. Say what the KPI is and where you are. Do not go into detail about why you are where you are. That takes up time and you will most likely lose your audience.

• Lessons Learned - Share something you learned from the day before AND what you learned from it that the whole team could benefit from hearing. This helps the whole team grow and it fosters an environment where it is okay to make mistakes. Remember that leaders go first, so if your team continually says they don’t have anything to share here, then you should share a mistake you made and how you fixed it/what you learned. They are more likely to contribute after that. Be specific and keep it brief.

• Top Thing for the Day - This is just one thing you promise to get done for the day. Not 4 things or your entire to-do list. Be very specific about where you will get with that one thing. What does success look like at the end of the day with that one thing?

Weekly Meeting (60-90 minutes)

Just like the daily huddle, most teams practice this. What I see is more often than not, these are going longer than 90 minutes and eating up valuable time with content that isn’t so useful or helpful. Here is what we suggest and what we see works well:

• Good News - Always good news to start the day. When the world is full of people sharing the negative, it is easy to forget about all the good happening around us and in our business. So share the good stuff that is happening with customers and teammates. Share stories about people living the Core Values and Core Purpose… Keep these at the forefront of everything!

• Review Action Items - Review the action items assigned last weekly meeting with the team. Go one by one; who owned it, what they were supposed to do, by what date, and if they got it done. If it didn’t get done, why not and do we need to set a new due date or does it not need to happen based on new information.

• Metrics Update - Share your department KPIs and where you stand on them.

• Company Priority Review/Update - Each company priority owner should speak to the company priority they own and give an update. They should share how they are currently tracking and what the next steps are. If there is a major issue, this is the perfect time to talk about what is going on and solve it as a collective group. This fosters accountability, transparency, and owing up to/learning from mistakes.

• Customer and Employee Feedback - What is the team hearing from customers and employees? Is there anything that needs to be addressed and solved as a group while in this meeting? Work to solve and close the look on some of these things.

• Top 3 Things for the Coming Week - Based on the information you have now, what are the top 3 things you need to accomplish this week (if your weekly meeting is earlier in the week) or next week (if your weekly meeting is later in the week). Just like in your daily huddle/stand up, be specific here. What is success with each item?

• Review Action Items from This Meeting - Review the action items that were assigned during this meeting. Who said they would do what, and by when.

Be open to having candid conversations with your team and working through things together. You don’t have to solve all the problems by yourself. Your team wants to help and wants to be successful just as much as you do. You can make it through these rough waters together, using your Core Values and Core Purpose as anchors.

If you are looking for further advice or resources, you can reach our team at pfd-group.com or by emailing me directly at kmcneil@pfd-group.com. We are here to steward lives and we want to help.

Communication: Foundation for Trust

Great communication is a key factor in the success of our clients. In our experience, not only is communication a core value for the PFD team, but we also found it to be a key factor in the success of our clients. We find many CEOs theoretically understand the importance of great communication both internally and externally, however, the execution can be difficult.

Equally, CEOs must communicate with their teams; over-communicating their vision, the core values, where they are focusing, where they are going. It is so important that this type of communication happens regularly. At PFD, we found two tools to be very effective in communicating and aligning our team.

Internal communication is a key factor for team alignment. The first tool that we recommend is a weekly CEO email. This is compiled by the senior leadership team, but edited and sent by the CEO to the entire company on a set schedule every week. Celebrating wins, reinforcing core values, and sharing KPIs can all be populated by the data in Metronome Growth Systems.

The second tool that we found to be very helpful is using growth system software to drive alignment and visibility. In our case, we have had success with Metronome Growth Systems that not only captures the company’s one-page growth plan but it also makes it easy for leaders to update their key initiatives and have awareness of what the rest of the team is working on.

We have found excellent communication to be a key success driver for high growth companies and nurturing the culture as the company grows. This is a core value for the PFD team.