In a dynamic business, the CEO and the management team need to stay on top of key performance indicators and metrics. We often obsess about them. One of my favorite old, old, old books is ‘The Great Game of Business’ by Jack Stack. He was a young manager who was assigned to a failing manufacturing facility ostensibly to shut it down. Instead, he decided to save it by leading the entire team to focus on improving the P&L and metrics inch by inch. Everybody owned a number, and they all knew how the numbers fit together and what success looked like. They met every week to review progress and recommit to achieving their numbers.
The same shared understanding of how the business operating system works is critical in every business. Each department or business function has a specific role to play, but they are all connected to the same drive shaft. Each area of the business is like a piston revving the engine, and we need all of the pistons firing in coordination with each other.
I have always been an advocate of a monthly meeting that includes a broad swath of cross-functional leaders to review the metrics for every area of the company. Taking a lesson from Jack Stack, I believe it helps all of the attendees to gain a perspective on the total business, and it creates a culture of accountability. It forces individuals to avoid the pitfall of having tunnel vision and focusing so much attention on their own metrics that they do not see the forest for the trees.
Here is a three-step formula to manage a monthly meeting that will be efficient and meaningful. First, direct each presenter to deliver their content at least 24 hours in advance of the meeting. It is helpful to have one person gather up the materials from all of the presenters and distribute it in advance as a briefing book. Limit each presenter’s content to only what they can fit on a single slide with no fonts less than 10 point. Insist that their content has sufficient context (historical performance, trends, goals, etc) to make it evident why it is important enough to be presented. In other words, it must pass the “so what?” test. Guide presenters to use a consistent format from one meeting to the next so team members can become familiar with the layout and content.
The second step is to conduct the meeting efficiently. These meetings can go on forever if you let them. My approach is to strictly limit each presenter to two or three minutes (we actually used a stop watch). Since the materials were delivered in advance, the presenter can assume we all read them, and there is no need to read the slides to us. Instruct presenters to only tell us what matters and why. Tell us what they see in the metrics they are presenting, and what needs to happen next. Do not allow any interruptions during the three minute presentations. I like to go through all of the presentations before there are any questions or discussion. Often, something said by one presenter will become clear in the context of what is said by another presenter. Also, if we stop for questions and discussion after each presenter, invariably we run out of time and have to rush through the later presenter. After the initial run-through of all of the slides, it is time for questions and discussion. We still need to be efficient, so I suggest proceeding one slide at a time. Ask for comments and questions specifically related to the topics on the slide, instead of a free for all. Keep it moving. Lastly, time permitting, it is good to have a summary moment. A trick I learned from a fellow CEO is to (almost) randomly pick a participant and ask them to summarize what we heard during the meeting. Ask them to give us their view of the state of the business and the hot spots identified in the meeting. It can be a bit intimidating, so everyone needs to know the question is coming to make sure they are not caught off guard. Choosing someone other than the CEO to summarize helps to avoid the CEO becoming the only voice in the room, and it is a good way to gauge the tenor of the team.
The last step is to designate a periodic meeting to step back from the trees and talk about how the forest looks. The team should still produce and deliver the same content in advance, but for one meeting skip all of the presentations and just hold an open discussion of how we think the overall business is doing. It forces the team to look at the company as a whole, and creates a sort of ‘zen headspace’ moment. By doing so, we collectively expand our lens and look across the business, rather than just focusing on narrow aspects and daily urgencies. Individual metrics are great, but sometimes we fly into the target because we miss the big picture. Formalizing an opportunity to step back creates perspective.
There is no standing still in a growth business. If we do the same level of performance tomorrow as we did today, our growth business will not be successful, so it is important that we stay on top of all the metrics. It is equally important to occasionally step back and make sure we all see the same trajectory and picture.