Operating cadence
Operating cadence is the fixed rhythm of meetings and reviews, daily to quarterly, that runs a company without the owner chasing every decision
Operating cadence is the fixed rhythm of meetings and reviews through which a company runs itself: a short daily huddle, a weekly leadership meeting with a scorecard, a monthly review of the numbers and quarterly planning that sets priorities. Each meeting has an agenda, a timekeeper, decisions recorded and owners named. The cadence happens whether or not the owner attends.
For owners in British Columbia the cadence is what replaces them as the company's nervous system. Without it, information travels through the owner, problems are discovered when they become emergencies and staff learn to escalate rather than decide. With it, problems are caught at the weekly meeting, managers own their numbers and the owner can miss a week and find the company still running.
In practice a cadence is installed in about a quarter. The weekly leadership meeting comes first, with a scorecard of five to ten numbers. Daily huddles follow in operations heavy businesses. The monthly finance review runs with the bookkeeper or fractional CFO alongside the company's CPA. Quarterly planning sets three to five priorities that the whole company can see. A fractional COO typically runs the cadence for the first quarter and then hands it to the managers. Ali Sedighi's team measures the cadence by the decisions the owner no longer makes, as much as by margin or delivery.
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A 30-minute call with Ali about the business and the people running it. You leave knowing which role to fill first and whether fractional, outsourced or a hire is the right answer, whether or not we work together.