Strategic Discipline Blog

Meetings can be boring!

Read More

Topics: Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni, meetings, Meeting Conflicts, better decisions through conflict

Virtual meetings are the norm today. No matter your industry, virtual meetings are not only formal, but they can also be engaging. How? By looking to these 6 helpful tips on virtual meeting engagement.

Read More

Topics: meetings, Employee Learning, Virtual Meetings

Meetings can be the scourge of an organization, or a catalyst for growth.

Read More

Topics: meeting rhythms, meetings, Innovation, leadership meetings, Leadership Decisions

Execution is about turning your hard-earned revenue (top line income that remember comes from Strategy) into bottom line net profit. Companies that are strong on top line performance and yet struggle to make a reasonable or attractive bottom line profit typically have challenges with Execution – that is being both efficient and effective operationally. In this blog we will cover the principles and habits that John D. Rockefeller used to build an operationally excellent company and which Verne Harnish (Scaling Up and Mastering the Rockefeller Habits) has adapted for mid-market growth companies.

Read More

Topics: Discipline, Strategic Discipline, meeting rhythms, Four Decisions, priorities, metrics, meetings, Execution

What does an effective quarterly meeting look like?

Read More

Topics: quarterly meetings, meeting rhythms, best practices of growth companies, meetings

There are a lot of reasons to not like meetings.  This is certainly the case if they are ill defined, lack structure, and are devoid of purpose.

Read More

Topics: Accountability, weekly meetings, Annual Plan, meetings

Is the mood in your company for meetings one of anticipation or aversion? 

A prospect this past week reacted to the suggestion of meetings by indicating they have to be careful in their organization to mention the word meeting.  His people dislike meetings and generally greet them with annoyance and impatience.  It suggests that the meetings they’ve conducted in the past are possibly disorganized, not well prepared, unexciting, lack conflict and do little to energize those participating.  It’s also a reflection of what I believe many businesses suffer from.  They feel meetings are boring, and a necessary evil.

Allow me to reflect on my current condition and place this in perspective.  I’m currently suffering from a condition called dry mouth.  It’s a symptom of Graft Versus Host Disease (GVHD)which can occur after bone marrow transplant for leukemia patients. 

Read More

Topics: meeting rhythms, Patrick Lencioni, meetings, Organizational Health, Alignment, Death by Meeting, Graft-Versus-Host Disease, GVHD

Someone once said that a vacation is anything you do that is outside your normal range of work.   I guess that means I’m on vacation. At least that’s where I planned to be this week.   

Read More

Topics: Acute Myeloid Luekemia, Accountability, Strategic Discipline, priorities, metrics, rituals, meetings, routine sets you free

The statistic is frightening.  40% of employee’s time is gobbled up by recurring problems!  These are the issues that never get solved, the copier that never works, the supply closet item that is always out of stock, the messages that are never delivered, equipment malfunctions.  If you conducted a meeting just to determine what recurring problems you have, would you have any doubt your people could provide you with an avalanche of issues?

Read More

Topics: Employee Feedback, quarterly meetings, meetings

Last blog we discussed the importance of meetings fitting together.  Your meetings should cascade or telescope from the first meeting of the year which should be your annual planning meeting.  This should be about 2 – 3 days depending upon what you need to discuss, how complex the challenges are that the organizations faces, and when you last did a proper planning and strategy session.

Read More

Topics: weekly meetings, Annual Plan, meeting rhythms, metrics, meetings, key performance indicators