Key takeaways
- One leadership meeting a week, same time, same page of numbers, same agenda, is most of what a company needs to run.
- Numbers first, then the issues the numbers raise, then decisions with an owner and a date.
- The owner runs it for the first quarter and then hands it to a COO or a fractional executive.
- Daily huddles and the weekly meeting replace most of the interruptions that fill an owner's day.
Ask an owner how the company is doing and the honest answer is usually a feeling. Ask how they know and the answer is that people come and tell them things all day. That is the operating system of most companies under $10M, and it works until it does not, which is usually the first month the owner is away or the team passes about fifteen people.
A weekly operating cadence replaces the stream of interruptions with one meeting, one page and a set of habits. It is not complicated. It is just rarely done consistently. Here is the version we install.
The one page of numbers
The meeting runs on a single page that is updated before it starts. The page carries no more than a dozen numbers, each with an owner, this week's value, last week's value and the target. Typical lines are enquiries, appointments booked, quotes sent, sales won, cash collected, jobs completed, on-time rate, callbacks or complaints, open hiring seats, and cash in the bank.
The page is the agenda. If a number is off target, it gets discussed. If it is on target, it gets a nod and the meeting moves on. This is what stops the meeting becoming a round of everyone describing their week.
Choose the lines by asking what you would want to know on the first day back from two weeks away. Those are the numbers, and everything else can wait for the monthly review.
The agenda, in order
Sixty to seventy five minutes, same time every week, no phones, no rescheduling for a customer unless the building is on fire. The consistency is the point.
- Five minutes. Each person gives one good thing from the week, business or personal. It sets the tone and takes less time than it sounds.
- Ten minutes. The page of numbers, read by owner of each line, with only the off-target lines discussed.
- Five minutes. Last week's decisions and actions. Done or not done, no stories.
- Thirty to forty minutes. The two or three biggest issues, chosen from the numbers and from what people raise. Discuss, decide, assign an owner and a date.
- Five minutes. Confirm the decisions, who tells the wider team what, and close on time.
Who attends and who runs it
The heads of each function attend, which at $1M to $5M is usually the owner, operations, sales and whoever holds finance, plus any fractional executive in a seat. Five to seven people. If more than that need to be there, the org chart has a gap.
Keep the room small enough that everyone speaks. A meeting where half the people listen is a broadcast, and a broadcast can be an email.
The owner runs it for the first quarter so that the team learns the habit from the top. After that a COO, an operations lead or a fractional executive takes the chair, and the owner becomes a participant. That handover is one of the clearest signs that a company has grown past its founder's calendar.
The daily huddle and the monthly review
Under the weekly meeting sits a daily huddle of ten minutes in each function, standing up, covering today's plan and today's problems. Above it sits a monthly review of the financials and the quarterly plan, which is a longer session with the numbers in more depth. Weekly is where the company is actually run. Daily keeps today on track. Monthly and quarterly keep the direction honest.
Together these replace most interruptions. When someone comes to the owner with an issue on Tuesday afternoon, the answer becomes whether it can wait for the huddle or the weekly meeting. Most of it can.
Rules that keep it alive
Start on time and end on time, every week, for a year. Update the page before the meeting, not during. Issues get decisions, not discussion for its own sake. Every decision has one owner and one date, written down and read back the following week. And the owner must stop solving everything personally in the room, or the meeting becomes a queue for the owner's attention rather than a leadership team.
We run these meetings with owners in the first quarter as part of our fractional COO and outsourced operations work, and then hand the chair over. The format above is simple enough to start next Monday.