Why Meet Weekly?

For the 14 years Clear Impact has been in business, I have avoided weekly meetings until this past year. They were hard to schedule for a consistent time, I didn’t have a clear idea of what to do in the meetings, and I was worried I would be wasting everyone’s time, especially mine. We ended up only scheduling a monthly meeting for all staff.

That was until we started doing weekly meetings for all our functional teams. I do one for our Revenue Generation Team, Consultant Team, Finance Team, and Leadership Team. That is four meetings I now have every week. Two of them are 30 minutes, and two of them are 60 minutes. Now, I can’t imagine a world without weekly meetings.

Driven mainly by checking in on our weekly metrics displayed in our scorecards, staff now know what to focus on short-term, I have the pulse of what matters most, and we can course correct if needed on a more real-time basis. Each staff person has no more than 1-4 key metrics to track every week and present at our meeting for increased accountability.

We also now know what winning the week looks like for each team. “Winning the week” means at least 50% of the metrics are trending in a positive direction at the time of reporting. If a team wins the week more than 75% of the time for the quarter, they get an extra day off.

We generally have the same agenda for each of the four meetings:

Sample Weekly Meeting Agenda:

Time (Avoid Exceeding 60-90 Minutes Total) Activity
5 min
  • Check-In (personal and business best for the previous week)
    • Warms everyone up to the meeting and boosts positive energy.
10 min
  • Weekly Scorecard Review
    • Helps you understand if you’re on track and allows you to correct mistakes.
10 min
  • Customer or Employee Headlines
    • Provides the context behind what everyone is doing to contribute to weekly metrics.
10 min
  • Weekly To-Do List Review (Task completion review and create new tasks for the upcoming week
    • Forces you to get from talk to action and stay accountable.
20 min
  • Issues/Roadblocks (and discussion to solve any)
    • Allows you to make effective decisions quickly.
2 min
  • Updates (any other announcements)
2 min
  • Summarize and Wrap-up
    • Reinforces commitments and action plans.
1 min
  • Meeting Rating (every person gives one number with no explanation on a scale of 1-10)
    • Allows for reflection and gets everyone thinking about how to optimize the next meeting.

Much of this discipline comes from the Entrepreneurial Operating System highlighted in the book, Traction by Gino Wickman. The book helps create structure within businesses, but you can apply the principles to any industry, including the public and social sectors.

If your organization needs a little more structure and focus on what matters most, give the weekly meeting agenda above a try. The selection of metrics for your weekly scorecard will be a work in progress. We have adjusted, removed, and added numerous metrics as part of the Clear Impact accountability journey.

You should expect some pushback, which is understandable, but you can use the opportunity to help your staff overcome their fear of data. Most anxieties surrounding regular performance check-ins have to do with fear of blame and punishment. Some team members may say their activities either can’t be measured weekly or collecting the data is too difficult. This may be a sign of work avoidance for a few, but for the most part, your employees may harbor (often justified) prejudices based on past experiences with the misuse of data.

Here’s how to combat that and get everyone on board with weekly data reviews. Engage in preliminary communication with your team and remind them that you will use data for collectively advancing the organization’s mission and working together towards the same vision. Explain that more consistent check-ins will actually save everyone time, resources, and effort by allowing the team to quickly spot areas of need and opportunities for creating the greatest impact. Finally, NEVER present data without context. Allow everyone the opportunity to provide the “story behind the curve” of their measures.

Once you get your team on board, congratulate yourself! Understand that you may have to force them initially, but if done well, these meetings will drive results, boosting morale for everyone. Ultimately, the weekly data review will bring precision to your team’s passion, help celebrate wins (big and small), and reinforce your purpose.

Helpful Tools for Weekly Meetings:

meeting toolsNow, you’re going to need a tool to track and report on metrics. If you’ve been following along, the system should allow you to track data weekly and provide the context behind each metric. Any tool that guides you through a proven performance improvement method is a plus! Check out the Free Tier of Clear Impact Scorecard if you want to create a weekly scorecard to help manage your organization.

Other helpful links:

See a demo of Clear Impact Scorecard

Effective Meetings: Level 10 Meeting for Entrepreneurial Leadership Teams

For Scorecard customers:

Learn how to change the reporting frequency on your measures here.