November 19, 2024 • 25 mins
I get this question all the time. Executives who wonder how often leadership teams should meet. In this episode I share what I've seen work best across all the various executive teams we've worked with over the last two decades.
We dive into how often you might consider meeting in your standard leadership team meetings, how often to do strategic offsite meetings, and the best way to do one-on-ones.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
How often are you meeting with your leadership
team, or how often should you bemeeting with them?
Let me share with you bestpractices.
We're seeing right now in thisepisode.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
This is the Lead in 30 podcast with Russ Hill.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
You cannot be serious .
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Strengthen your ability to lead in less than 30
minutes.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
If you've listened for a long time, you know that
I'm a huge fan, a huge believerin the power of walking around,
right Management by walkingaround.
I had an experience early in mymanagement career that one of
the senior executives in ourcompany, when I was asking him
for what's your secret like, howdid you build this part of our
company into such a successfulendeavor, and he said it's, the
(00:48):
secret is I walk around.
And I thought what, wait,that's it Like, that's your
secret.
You walk around.
And then, as I matured andgained more experience, I
realized what he meant it wasand in fact, we teach it as
three different words.
I want you to think about thesevisibility, accessibility and
(01:08):
transparency.
Okay, visibility, accessibilityand transparency.
So when I talk about walkingaround and in today's day and
age, where so many of us haveteams that are hybrid or
somewhat virtual or all virtual,you have to do that differently
.
So I'm going to get into eachof those in just a second.
But first off, welcome into theLead.
(01:30):
In 30 podcast, in less than 30minutes per episode, we give you
a best practice, a model, aframework, an experience, a
story, something for you tothink about, incorporating or
leaning into in the way that youlead others as you try to
expand your impact, expand yourinfluence, expand your income,
expand your results.
(01:51):
And my name is Russ Hill.
I make my living coaching,consulting senior executive
teams at some of the world'sbiggest companies A little under
the weather, so I might take alittle, a few cough breaks here.
I just can't shake this coldthat I've had forever.
It's driving me insane and, um,I'm half a step away from just
(02:12):
surrendering, going into thedoctor and say, come on, give me
something to just kick thisthing.
But, um, anyway.
So if you notice it, that's uh,that's why I might sound a
little nasally.
Um, by the way, if you want tofind out more about our 30-day
leadership cohort, our 30-dayleadership training program,
maybe taking it into yourcompany, leadin30.com is where
you can find out more and youcan meet some members of our
(02:34):
team and even reach out to someof them on the website.
There.
They are amazing individuals.
I can't recommend them anyhigher than I do.
Okay, visibility, accessibility,transparency let's talk about
those real quick.
And then I'm going to spendmost of this episode talking
about visibility how oftenyou're meeting with your team,
and I'm going to share with you,because we're having these,
(02:54):
this conversation with theexecutives that we interact with
, that we work with in ourconsulting business all the time
, and they're asking questions,and so I'm going to share with
you what we see.
We're pretty passionate aboutthis and um about what works
best based on the results we see, and the industry doesn't
really matter.
So, but before I get intovisibility, I want to talk about
(03:15):
these other two.
So well, in fact, let me justbreak down all three words.
So management, by walkingaround, making sure that you're
having an impact that you couldbe having as a leader First
thing is visibility.
Visibility is what I control.
It's how often I show up formeetings, it's how often I'm
walking the factory floor.
It's how often I'm roundingwith patients in the hospital
(03:36):
unit.
It's how often I'm sending anemail out.
It's how often I'm making apost in Slack.
It's how often I'm reaching out, texting or calling my team
members.
It's how often I'm doing an allhands meeting.
That's I'm controlling it.
It's outbound visibility, ifyou will.
So I'm scheduling this andthere's a cadence to that.
Right, if you go too long withit, if you're got a member of
(03:59):
your team, they're like man, Ihaven't heard from Russ in
forever.
Then it starts to affect theculture, it starts to affect
their energy level, it starts toaffect their um, their
alignment with our vision andand reminding them about what
we're trying to accomplish.
So visibility is I want to havea cadence to that and we're
(04:21):
going to get into that, as itrelates to meetings, in just a
second.
Then accessibility prettyobvious.
Right, that's incoming.
So it's how often?
How fast do I respond to thetext that I'm getting?
How fast do I respond?
Or how often do I respond inthe Slack channel or in
Microsoft Teams or whateverplatform you're using?
(04:42):
How often can somebody send anemail and know that I'm going to
get back to them?
And we all have our preferredmethods of communication.
Like our team at our firm wouldbe like man, you can't get
ahold of us through email.
I just really suck at email.
Now, on text messaging, I'mpretty darn good.
I pride myself on that.
Few times it slacks, but Ialways tell people.
(05:04):
If you can't get me on email,or you sent me an email and it's
been 24 hours and I try to begood on that you just ping me,
just poke me on text, or samething with Slack.
So Slack.
I do pretty good in Text,pretty good.
And if you call me, my cellphone rings 95% of the time.
90% of the time I'm going toanswer, unless it's a week where
I'm super busy, I'm on a planeor I'm in client meetings all
(05:27):
day.
But if I'm not at a clientmeeting or I'm not on a plane,
I'm going to, I'm like I'm goingto do everything I can to
answer.
It might just be hey, I'll callyou back in a minute.
Like I want you to hold thatbelief If you're going to answer
.
Accessibility.
So you think about how often amI visible?
(05:48):
How am I doing in that area?
How often and I'm working onthat with some people right, and
and and and it ebbs and flowsand then accessibility Okay,
that's really important, becausesome of you are super visible
but you're not accessible.
Or some of you are accessiblebut you're not visible tracking
with me and then transparency isokay.
Well, when you're make yourselfvisible or when you're
(06:08):
accessible, do you tell mereally what's going on?
Like, do you give me?
Do I feel like you're genuine?
Do you feel, do I feel likeyou're telling me what you
really think?
Are you giving me the data thatI need or are you giving me the
company line?
You're kind of holding back oryou're really good at listening,
but you're not great atanswering my questions or
sharing the data or sharing yourvision or letting me know how
(06:29):
you're reacting to something.
So, visibility, accessibility,transparency we wrote about
those in one of our books Ican't remember which one, I
think it's.
I think it's a remote ability,but I'm not sure to the remote
ability or the great resignation.
So if you want a little bitmore on that and some stories
that go with it, pick up thatbook, if you haven't already.
(06:50):
Uh, I think it's remotability,okay.
So, um, let's talk aboutmeeting cadence, and this falls
under I.
I, I wanted to zoom out, macroand give you visibility,
accessibility, transparency, sothat I could show you how
meetings are under visibility.
So some of you, you're reallygood with your meeting cadence,
(07:10):
but you suck at being accessible.
You're not cutting it right,your, your team's, having
challenges, that that leads tothat.
That affects engagement in anegative way.
It affects, um, morale, itaffects, uh, motivation and
drive and our urgency when youaren't doing all three.
Okay.
So, under visibility, I'll getthis question all the time,
(07:31):
especially from new clients ofours on the consulting side.
How often should we be meeting?
And some of you lead leadershipteams.
You're a senior executive,you're a mid-level manager, so
you're leading leaders Like youlead people leaders.
Others of you know you've gotmid-level manager, so you're
leading leaders Like you leadpeople leaders.
Others of you know you've gotdirect reports in their
individual contributors, theirfrontline supervisors.
In this episode, I'm talkingmostly about those of you who
(07:56):
lead teams of leaders, of peoplemanagers.
And if that's not you right now, I still want you to listen
because that's going to be you.
As you scale your company or asyou scale your career and you
go up the org chart or youincrease the size of your
organization, you're going tohave that leadership team.
And, by the way, as you buildthat and you build members of
(08:18):
that leadership team, youaccelerate the pace of achieving
results.
That's how you scale right.
So it's not just you leadingthe pace of achieving results.
That's how you scale right.
So it's not just you leadingthe department.
Now you got other leaders aroundyou, which allows you to gain
altitude.
Now you can soar higher andlook at the horizon more and be
more strategic in your mindset,because you're not as tactical,
(08:39):
because you got people now thatare doing that for you, and some
of you are in companies whereyou got to scale the leadership
team more.
You got to beef it up.
The reason you're not growingas fast as you could be is
because you're wearing too manyhats and you're too tactical and
you're flying at too low of analtitude.
Right now You're doing thestuff that at this point in the
company's evolution, you need tobe gaining altitude.
(09:01):
You need to be more strategic.
You need to be gaining altitude.
You need to be more strategic.
You need to be planning ahead.
You need to be being able touse your mind share to focus on
where we could be going ratherthan what's happening today.
You with me.
So, as you build out thatleadership team, or if you've
(09:21):
already got it and you're asenior executive at a decent
sized company or a large company, how often should you meet with
that leadership team?
Or if you've already got it andyou're a senior executive at a
decent-sized company or a largecompany, how often should you
meet with that leadership team?
Not every week, that'd be myfirst position.
I mean there are a fewexceptions, especially if you're
like managing.
I can think of one organizationin the insurance industry and
this is a major growth part ofthis Fortune 10 company, and so
(09:46):
the senior leader in that areashe did.
She did like they call themstand-up meetings.
None of them are in the samebuilding, they're spread out in
different locations andsomebody's working from home, or
a few of them are at home todayand a few of them are in those
offices in those differentstates, and generally the
leadership team's traveling adecent amount and so she's doing
just stand-up meetings and whatthat is is every Thursday or
(10:06):
Tuesday, I forget when they doit, you dial in on Microsoft
Teams or whatever platform it isfor that company, I can't
remember.
And they've got it scheduledfor like half an hour, but they
rarely take the full half anhour and she's got no agenda.
This is just like a check in ahuddle.
It's like what nurses do in aunit when one shift is getting
(10:26):
off and the next shift is comingon.
So all she does is everybodyshows up, whoever can make the
meeting.
It's like, okay, what do wehave?
What do you guys need?
And it's her being accessible,right, and it's her making the
other teams accessible.
Okay, what do we have?
That's bubbling up or anybodygot a question or is there
something that's stuck or whatdo we need to be aware of?
(10:47):
And this is this is a meetingwith no slides.
It's got no agenda other thanwe're just checking in with each
other.
It's a standup meeting.
So that happens weekly becauseof the urgency of the projects
that they've been working on.
That's an exception.
Most leadership teams.
Weekly is too much Like you're,you're wasting time there.
(11:08):
Again, there are exceptions theoutliers.
If it's working for you, stickwith it.
Just most of the organizationsthat we work with they do not.
The leadership teams notgetting together weekly, there's
not that much to talk about.
And the senior executivedoesn't want the leaders talking
, they want them executing.
So every other week is prettystandard.
(11:31):
So every other Monday andMondays are generally the days
for meetings, and typically aMonday afternoon, either a
Monday afternoon or a Mondaymorning.
Why?
Because we're setting the pace,we're setting the tone for the
whole week, plus you've got theweekend to kind of plan and fine
tune the agenda and you want todo the meeting.
Typically, like in our firm, wedo it Monday morning.
(11:53):
Why?
Because a lot of times we'reflying Monday afternoon,
otherwise we would do it Mondayafternoon.
People are most productive inmost organizations in the
morning.
So I don't want a meeting inthe morning, I want people
executing, I want them buildingstuff, I want them getting stuff
done.
So like three o'clock, when theenergy level kind of goes down,
or two o'clock or one o'clock,that's a great time for a
(12:14):
meeting in the afternoon for usand our organization A lot of
you too.
You got people in the air, likepeople are running off to the
airport.
So we know that typically halfour leadership team is going to
be in the air on a Mondayafternoon and so they probably
are flying out at 10 or 11 orwhatever.
So if we do a meeting at nine,we're going to catch them.
(12:35):
And those early morning meetingsit depends on your culture and
your style or whatever.
I've always despised earlymorning meetings.
Why?
Because I'm not a morningperson.
Some of you are.
You get up at like four, Idon't know why, but you do, and
that works for you.
So an eight o'clock meeting, aseven o'clock meeting, works
great for you and in yourculture.
For me, you're not going to getmy best.
(12:56):
I'm happy to be there at seven.
I'm happy to be there at six.
I'm happy to be there at eight.
You're not going to get my best.
You get.
You schedule the meeting fornine or 10.
I've had a chance to checkemail, I've had a chance to get
a couple of things done, I'vehad a chance to get going and
now you're going to, you'regoing to get me with some energy
on the upswing.
So for me I prefer like a nineor 10 o'clock in the morning
(13:18):
meeting If we've got flights inthe afternoon, because that
that's people's less productive.
Yours is going to depend on thefactory shifts or people's
travel schedule or the hospital,whatever all these different
variables.
But generally every other week,what do we do on that agenda?
(13:40):
It varies, but what you don'twant to do and I've been a part
of these meetings for years is,yeah, we're just going to get
together and go and maybe lookat the calendar and then we're
just going to go around the horn.
We're just going to go hearfrom everybody Talk about a
wasted opportunity.
So, unless there are specificthings that okay, this is what
we want sales to report on everyother Monday.
(14:00):
This is what we want marketingto report on.
This is what it is and it'sjust this little bit of data
that works, or you can split itup Next week is marketing, the
following week, the two weekslater, is sales, whatever it
might be, always start themeeting with your key results.
We teach it in Lead in 30, tkrs,team key results.
(14:23):
So we're starting with that.
Hey, you all, as we start themeeting, it's it's just like
it's just foundational, and soit's uh, here, here they are,
and uh, just, and that alwaysleads to comments.
Like you know, you guys werecrushing it on that first one.
Great job in the last few weekson this, that and the other.
You're're always it's the firstslide that's shared, it's
(14:46):
printed on the agenda the teamkey results.
We always, always, always,always, start with the team key
results or the organization'skey results in the meeting and
then typically the agenda willbe structured around it, because
one key result is going to besales, most likely, and
(15:07):
everybody affects that revenuenumber, but you're going to let
sales take it.
One is going to be aroundprofit or safety or quality or
something, and that's naturallykind of sits under one leader.
We all impact it, but thatdepartment kind of leads the
charge on it.
And then you've got another onethat might be people or
engagement or whatever it mightbe, or a customer or patient.
(15:29):
We've got somebody that kind ofsits under patient experience
or or, um, people management,whatever, and so they, they,
they kind of lead that one.
So you see how that'sstructured, okay.
Ok, then, if you are not doingquarterly offsites, why aren't
you?
Absolutely, and what wetypically see.
(15:51):
It depends on the size of yourteam, depends on the
organization.
Typically it's two days or aday and a half and you're not in
the office.
Why?
Because you get interrupted,people step out nonstop, people
get pulled out of the meeting.
You're not thinking creatively.
Go to the hotel and rent ameeting space, go to whatever
(16:15):
facility If you can be outdoorsand we're in a season right now
where most of us can't beoutdoors but be somewhere where
it's the windows.
The whole room is full ofwindows and I can see like get
my creative thinking, curb,appeal matters here.
Spend some money, go to a niceplace, maybe stay overnight,
(16:38):
whatever it might be.
Get people out of the officebuilding, get them to a place
that gets their right braincreative juices flowing.
Get them to a place where theycan sit down and and have a cup
of coffee or a or a bagel orwhatever, and they're sitting
around and they're kind of there.
There there's time built in toget to know each other and to
(17:01):
the agenda Isn't so frickingstructured that we can't have
some time coming in and out ofthe room Like you want this team
bonding, you want them justnaturally talking to each other,
you want to give them breaksand whatever Super important.
And then, if you do, some of youcan do it in a day, day and a
half, don't.
And these meetings that go from8 am to 5 pm are brutal.
(17:24):
You think you're gettingpeople's best up at 3 o'clock in
the afternoon.
They're fried.
No, we usually start at 9because we're going to give
people some time to get emailsdone or get some breakfast in
the morning, and then we're doneat 2 or 3.
Why?
Because you're not good after 2or 3 anyway, no one's paying
attention.
You're fried.
(17:45):
Good after two or three.
Anyway, no one's payingattention.
You're fried.
And so I've worked for bosses,I've worked at firms where
they're like yeah, we want to.
We're spending all this moneygetting people together.
We're going till five.
I'm like well, you're gettingnothing.
Like you, if you, we're gonnaall act like we're fully engaged
the last hour or two, but youreally get nothing.
So that that's.
That's my bias on that.
(18:05):
In being in as I wouldchallenge most of you to have
been in more of those meetingsthan I have at more
organizations, more companieswith more executive teams, I've
just I make my living doing that.
So I've seen it in organizationafter organization after
organization.
There is a difference on theteam where the leader gets his
(18:27):
or her team offsite every threemonths, does two days or does a
day and a half or whatever, anddoesn't have this fricking
structured, crazy agenda thatgoes nonstop.
We'll start at seven, we'll endat six.
Oh my gosh, I dread thesemeetings right.
So, also on the agenda, part ofit is strategic and part of it
(18:53):
is culture.
So I make my living, our firm.
We typically come in and run ahalf a day of those two days.
Every quarter we typically arerunning half a day or it might
be two hours, depending on howmuch movement's needed, how deep
in the work we are, and we'recoming in to talk about how the
team's working together.
So part of the offsitestructured on the what what
(19:16):
we're trying to get accomplished, it's strategy and part of it
is structured around how.
When I say, culture.
I'm not talking about you'replaying games.
That's not culture.
Okay, that's just fun, that'sjust building some bond or
whatever.
That's not what I'm talkingabout.
What I'm talking about is whereyou're exchanging feedback and
how you're showing up with oneanother.
(19:37):
We were talking about where youneed greater alignment, where
the organization is having somesilos.
We are talking about that.
We don't have enough clarity inthis area or whatever.
You're talking about the how.
These are meaningful,productive, intense
conversations in a how we worktogether.
You got it.
So part of it the majority ofthe meetings on the what, and
(19:59):
then part of it's on the how wework together, and you either
bring in a consulting firm oryou bring in somebody that knows
how to do that if somebody torun that and you got to have the
real conversations.
This is where you dive in.
You're talking about the realstuff and you're getting people
to be candid and right.
Otherwise it's a total waste oftime.
People are just telling youwhat they what, what they think
(20:19):
you want to hear.
That's what you're saying toeach other.
So the other thing I'd say aboutthat is in those strategic
offsites, do not do death byPowerPoint.
Okay, from eight to nine, we'regoing to have marketing present
their strategic update and then, from nine to 10, we're going
to get a quarterly businessreview from whatever team like
poke a razor in my eyelid.
Review from whatever team likepoke a razor in my eyelid, like
(20:44):
no that, because most of thoseare boring, and the way most of
the leaders, your managers andyou, the way most of you present
you've got all these slides anddata and you've lost me after
slide four, like totally tunedout.
The other thing I'm on mysoapbox here, the other thing
that matters is no freakinglaptops.
Are you kidding me?
You're seriously going tostructure the room in a U.
(21:07):
You're going to have everybodysitting at a laptop and you're
going to have marketing reportfor this hour and that business
unit report for that time andthis team report for that.
Everybody's on their laptop.
They are halfway listening, ifthat much.
They're responding to emails.
They're doing black Fridayshopping.
They're responding to text.
They are not.
(21:28):
They're halfway listening.
Why the crap did you pay to geteverybody together?
Get the laptops closed.
Old school people, notebook,ipad, whatever tablet you want
to be writing on, or a sheet ofpaper, and I prefer old school,
like no technology.
We're going to take breaks soyou can go in.
(21:49):
We're going to give you 30minutes every hour, every hour
and a half, every two hours.
We're going to take a 30 minutebreak.
That's when you go check youremail, that's when you go do
whatever.
That's when you make that call.
Otherwise you're in here,Technology's off.
Let the team know, I mean, ifthere might be there might be
(22:10):
occasionally, 25% of the time amajor fire that erupts with a
customer or somebody else andsomebody's got to step out.
But but some of you, you runyour meetings.
We, when we start working withclients, we'll see this and then
we'll give them feedback andthey'll stop doing it because we
push on it.
Some people are like, yeah, Igot to manage the clients.
Well, hello, do you have aclient fire breaking out
literally every 15 minutesBecause your sales dude's
(22:30):
walking out or on his phone, orshe is every 15 minutes?
I can't have that many firesand if you do, you need a new
sales manager or you need they.
That that sales manager needsstronger lieutenants because you
can't go through a two-hourmeeting without being
interrupted.
Like nobody's that important.
The president sits at a meetingfor whatever I mean.
Okay, you know what I mean.
So, um, that's quarterly offset.
(22:53):
Last thing I want to talk aboutis one-on-ones and you all,
frequent contact.
What I care about more, basedon what I've seen work in
organizations, I care about thestructured one-on-one that's
important, but I, what I caremore about is the spontaneous
phone call, the spontaneous text.
(23:14):
Some of you suck at this.
Some of you are really good atit.
This goes to kind of the.
This is right under visibility.
So, more than the one-on-one,the formal one, where we sit
down once a month and we reviewwhatever, I just want you
calling me, like twice a week.
I want you to, I want you, Iwant to hear your voice.
Just, no agenda, out of thecold.
Just call me.
Hey, jared, it's Russ.
(23:36):
How are you?
Hey, man, I just got off aplane, whatever.
You got five minutes,absolutely.
What's going on?
Oh, not much man, we're justdoing this.
Whatever?
Anything specific about whatyou're calling?
Nope, just checking in.
How are you, how are thingsgoing?
That's what management bywalking around sounds like.
Or if you're in the physicallocation which very few of you
(23:58):
are in the same physicallocation with everybody all the
time but if you are, that'sgoing and checking in with
somebody.
It's walking over hey Mike,how's it going?
Just want to check in with youfor a second.
I might even close the door fora minute, just spontaneously
close the door.
And I'm doing this two or threetimes a week.
I want to be close to my people.
I want to hear their mood.
(24:20):
I want to see their bodylanguage.
I want to be, I want to.
They're going to bring stuff upthree or four minutes into that
conversation.
They're going to go.
Actually, we were in this call,you know, I'm actually I'm glad
you're here because I want tobring this up with you and
that's where the stuff comes up.
You don't want it in a meetingthree weeks from now or two
(24:41):
weeks from now.
So it's the one-on-ones, thatinteraction for me, that's.
I care a lot more about the um,the, the, the frequency of that,
than the formality of it.
It's strategic offsites everyquarter and I didn't give you a
lot on.
I kind of talked to you aboutthe two different categories,
what you talk about, but wecould get more in another
episode if you wanted to, or youcould just direct message me if
you want, and, uh, and and, andI can answer any questions
(25:03):
you've got about.
Well, what does that agendalook like?
And then it is the every otherweek.
For some of you it's once amonth meeting with the
leadership team.
Visibility that all fits undervisibility, okay.
Visibility, accessibility,transparency, how we interact
with our team Okay, hope that'shelpful to you.
I hope that you're thinking ofsome tweaks that you can make.
(25:27):
Your impact on the people thatyou lead is huge.
You've got to be accessible tothem, you've got to be visible
to them, and how you do that iscritically important.
That's what's on my mind inthis episode of the Lead in 30
podcast.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
Share this episode with a colleague, your team or a
friend.
Tap on the share button andtext the link.
Thanks for listening to theLead in 30 podcast with Russ
Hill.
How often are you meeting with your leadership
team, or how often should you bemeeting with them?
Let me share with you bestpractices.
We're seeing right now in thisepisode.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
This is the Lead in 30 podcast with Russ Hill.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
You cannot be serious .
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Strengthen your ability to lead in less than 30
minutes.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
If you've listened for a long time, you know that
I'm a huge fan, a huge believerin the power of walking around,
right Management by walkingaround.
I had an experience early in mymanagement career that one of
the senior executives in ourcompany, when I was asking him
for what's your secret like, howdid you build this part of our
company into such a successfulendeavor, and he said it's, the
(00:48):
secret is I walk around.
And I thought what, wait,that's it Like, that's your
secret.
You walk around.
And then, as I matured andgained more experience, I
realized what he meant it wasand in fact, we teach it as
three different words.
I want you to think about thesevisibility, accessibility and
(01:08):
transparency.
Okay, visibility, accessibilityand transparency.
So when I talk about walkingaround and in today's day and
age, where so many of us haveteams that are hybrid or
somewhat virtual or all virtual,you have to do that differently
.
So I'm going to get into eachof those in just a second.
But first off, welcome into theLead.
(01:30):
In 30 podcast, in less than 30minutes per episode, we give you
a best practice, a model, aframework, an experience, a
story, something for you tothink about, incorporating or
leaning into in the way that youlead others as you try to
expand your impact, expand yourinfluence, expand your income,
expand your results.
(01:51):
And my name is Russ Hill.
I make my living coaching,consulting senior executive
teams at some of the world'sbiggest companies A little under
the weather, so I might take alittle, a few cough breaks here.
I just can't shake this coldthat I've had forever.
It's driving me insane and, um,I'm half a step away from just
(02:12):
surrendering, going into thedoctor and say, come on, give me
something to just kick thisthing.
But, um, anyway.
So if you notice it, that's uh,that's why I might sound a
little nasally.
Um, by the way, if you want tofind out more about our 30-day
leadership cohort, our 30-dayleadership training program,
maybe taking it into yourcompany, leadin30.com is where
you can find out more and youcan meet some members of our
(02:34):
team and even reach out to someof them on the website.
There.
They are amazing individuals.
I can't recommend them anyhigher than I do.
Okay, visibility, accessibility,transparency let's talk about
those real quick.
And then I'm going to spendmost of this episode talking
about visibility how oftenyou're meeting with your team,
and I'm going to share with you,because we're having these,
(02:54):
this conversation with theexecutives that we interact with
, that we work with in ourconsulting business all the time
, and they're asking questions,and so I'm going to share with
you what we see.
We're pretty passionate aboutthis and um about what works
best based on the results we see, and the industry doesn't
really matter.
So, but before I get intovisibility, I want to talk about
(03:15):
these other two.
So well, in fact, let me justbreak down all three words.
So management, by walkingaround, making sure that you're
having an impact that you couldbe having as a leader First
thing is visibility.
Visibility is what I control.
It's how often I show up formeetings, it's how often I'm
walking the factory floor.
It's how often I'm roundingwith patients in the hospital
(03:36):
unit.
It's how often I'm sending anemail out.
It's how often I'm making apost in Slack.
It's how often I'm reaching out, texting or calling my team
members.
It's how often I'm doing an allhands meeting.
That's I'm controlling it.
It's outbound visibility, ifyou will.
So I'm scheduling this andthere's a cadence to that.
Right, if you go too long withit, if you're got a member of
(03:59):
your team, they're like man, Ihaven't heard from Russ in
forever.
Then it starts to affect theculture, it starts to affect
their energy level, it starts toaffect their um, their
alignment with our vision andand reminding them about what
we're trying to accomplish.
So visibility is I want to havea cadence to that and we're
(04:21):
going to get into that, as itrelates to meetings, in just a
second.
Then accessibility prettyobvious.
Right, that's incoming.
So it's how often?
How fast do I respond to thetext that I'm getting?
How fast do I respond?
Or how often do I respond inthe Slack channel or in
Microsoft Teams or whateverplatform you're using?
(04:42):
How often can somebody send anemail and know that I'm going to
get back to them?
And we all have our preferredmethods of communication.
Like our team at our firm wouldbe like man, you can't get
ahold of us through email.
I just really suck at email.
Now, on text messaging, I'mpretty darn good.
I pride myself on that.
Few times it slacks, but Ialways tell people.
(05:04):
If you can't get me on email,or you sent me an email and it's
been 24 hours and I try to begood on that you just ping me,
just poke me on text, or samething with Slack.
So Slack.
I do pretty good in Text,pretty good.
And if you call me, my cellphone rings 95% of the time.
90% of the time I'm going toanswer, unless it's a week where
I'm super busy, I'm on a planeor I'm in client meetings all
(05:27):
day.
But if I'm not at a clientmeeting or I'm not on a plane,
I'm going to, I'm like I'm goingto do everything I can to
answer.
It might just be hey, I'll callyou back in a minute.
Like I want you to hold thatbelief If you're going to answer
.
Accessibility.
So you think about how often amI visible?
(05:48):
How am I doing in that area?
How often and I'm working onthat with some people right, and
and and and it ebbs and flowsand then accessibility Okay,
that's really important, becausesome of you are super visible
but you're not accessible.
Or some of you are accessiblebut you're not visible tracking
with me and then transparency isokay.
Well, when you're make yourselfvisible or when you're
(06:08):
accessible, do you tell mereally what's going on?
Like, do you give me?
Do I feel like you're genuine?
Do you feel, do I feel likeyou're telling me what you
really think?
Are you giving me the data thatI need or are you giving me the
company line?
You're kind of holding back oryou're really good at listening,
but you're not great atanswering my questions or
sharing the data or sharing yourvision or letting me know how
(06:29):
you're reacting to something.
So, visibility, accessibility,transparency we wrote about
those in one of our books Ican't remember which one, I
think it's.
I think it's a remote ability,but I'm not sure to the remote
ability or the great resignation.
So if you want a little bitmore on that and some stories
that go with it, pick up thatbook, if you haven't already.
(06:50):
Uh, I think it's remotability,okay.
So, um, let's talk aboutmeeting cadence, and this falls
under I.
I, I wanted to zoom out, macroand give you visibility,
accessibility, transparency, sothat I could show you how
meetings are under visibility.
So some of you, you're reallygood with your meeting cadence,
(07:10):
but you suck at being accessible.
You're not cutting it right,your, your team's, having
challenges, that that leads tothat.
That affects engagement in anegative way.
It affects, um, morale, itaffects, uh, motivation and
drive and our urgency when youaren't doing all three.
Okay.
So, under visibility, I'll getthis question all the time,
(07:31):
especially from new clients ofours on the consulting side.
How often should we be meeting?
And some of you lead leadershipteams.
You're a senior executive,you're a mid-level manager, so
you're leading leaders Like youlead people leaders.
Others of you know you've gotmid-level manager, so you're
leading leaders Like you leadpeople leaders.
Others of you know you've gotdirect reports in their
individual contributors, theirfrontline supervisors.
In this episode, I'm talkingmostly about those of you who
(07:56):
lead teams of leaders, of peoplemanagers.
And if that's not you right now, I still want you to listen
because that's going to be you.
As you scale your company or asyou scale your career and you
go up the org chart or youincrease the size of your
organization, you're going tohave that leadership team.
And, by the way, as you buildthat and you build members of
(08:18):
that leadership team, youaccelerate the pace of achieving
results.
That's how you scale right.
So it's not just you leadingthe pace of achieving results.
That's how you scale right.
So it's not just you leadingthe department.
Now you got other leaders aroundyou, which allows you to gain
altitude.
Now you can soar higher andlook at the horizon more and be
more strategic in your mindset,because you're not as tactical,
(08:39):
because you got people now thatare doing that for you, and some
of you are in companies whereyou got to scale the leadership
team more.
You got to beef it up.
The reason you're not growingas fast as you could be is
because you're wearing too manyhats and you're too tactical and
you're flying at too low of analtitude.
Right now You're doing thestuff that at this point in the
company's evolution, you need tobe gaining altitude.
(09:01):
You need to be more strategic.
You need to be gaining altitude.
You need to be more strategic.
You need to be planning ahead.
You need to be being able touse your mind share to focus on
where we could be going ratherthan what's happening today.
You with me.
So, as you build out thatleadership team, or if you've
(09:21):
already got it and you're asenior executive at a decent
sized company or a large company, how often should you meet with
that leadership team?
Or if you've already got it andyou're a senior executive at a
decent-sized company or a largecompany, how often should you
meet with that leadership team?
Not every week, that'd be myfirst position.
I mean there are a fewexceptions, especially if you're
like managing.
I can think of one organizationin the insurance industry and
this is a major growth part ofthis Fortune 10 company, and so
(09:46):
the senior leader in that areashe did.
She did like they call themstand-up meetings.
None of them are in the samebuilding, they're spread out in
different locations andsomebody's working from home, or
a few of them are at home todayand a few of them are in those
offices in those differentstates, and generally the
leadership team's traveling adecent amount and so she's doing
just stand-up meetings and whatthat is is every Thursday or
(10:06):
Tuesday, I forget when they doit, you dial in on Microsoft
Teams or whatever platform it isfor that company, I can't
remember.
And they've got it scheduledfor like half an hour, but they
rarely take the full half anhour and she's got no agenda.
This is just like a check in ahuddle.
It's like what nurses do in aunit when one shift is getting
(10:26):
off and the next shift is comingon.
So all she does is everybodyshows up, whoever can make the
meeting.
It's like, okay, what do wehave?
What do you guys need?
And it's her being accessible,right, and it's her making the
other teams accessible.
Okay, what do we have?
That's bubbling up or anybodygot a question or is there
something that's stuck or whatdo we need to be aware of?
(10:47):
And this is this is a meetingwith no slides.
It's got no agenda other thanwe're just checking in with each
other.
It's a standup meeting.
So that happens weekly becauseof the urgency of the projects
that they've been working on.
That's an exception.
Most leadership teams.
Weekly is too much Like you're,you're wasting time there.
(11:08):
Again, there are exceptions theoutliers.
If it's working for you, stickwith it.
Just most of the organizationsthat we work with they do not.
The leadership teams notgetting together weekly, there's
not that much to talk about.
And the senior executivedoesn't want the leaders talking
, they want them executing.
So every other week is prettystandard.
(11:31):
So every other Monday andMondays are generally the days
for meetings, and typically aMonday afternoon, either a
Monday afternoon or a Mondaymorning.
Why?
Because we're setting the pace,we're setting the tone for the
whole week, plus you've got theweekend to kind of plan and fine
tune the agenda and you want todo the meeting.
Typically, like in our firm, wedo it Monday morning.
(11:53):
Why?
Because a lot of times we'reflying Monday afternoon,
otherwise we would do it Mondayafternoon.
People are most productive inmost organizations in the
morning.
So I don't want a meeting inthe morning, I want people
executing, I want them buildingstuff, I want them getting stuff
done.
So like three o'clock, when theenergy level kind of goes down,
or two o'clock or one o'clock,that's a great time for a
(12:14):
meeting in the afternoon for usand our organization A lot of
you too.
You got people in the air, likepeople are running off to the
airport.
So we know that typically halfour leadership team is going to
be in the air on a Mondayafternoon and so they probably
are flying out at 10 or 11 orwhatever.
So if we do a meeting at nine,we're going to catch them.
(12:35):
And those early morning meetingsit depends on your culture and
your style or whatever.
I've always despised earlymorning meetings.
Why?
Because I'm not a morningperson.
Some of you are.
You get up at like four, Idon't know why, but you do, and
that works for you.
So an eight o'clock meeting, aseven o'clock meeting, works
great for you and in yourculture.
For me, you're not going to getmy best.
(12:56):
I'm happy to be there at seven.
I'm happy to be there at six.
I'm happy to be there at eight.
You're not going to get my best.
You get.
You schedule the meeting fornine or 10.
I've had a chance to checkemail, I've had a chance to get
a couple of things done, I'vehad a chance to get going and
now you're going to, you'regoing to get me with some energy
on the upswing.
So for me I prefer like a nineor 10 o'clock in the morning
(13:18):
meeting If we've got flights inthe afternoon, because that
that's people's less productive.
Yours is going to depend on thefactory shifts or people's
travel schedule or the hospital,whatever all these different
variables.
But generally every other week,what do we do on that agenda?
(13:40):
It varies, but what you don'twant to do and I've been a part
of these meetings for years is,yeah, we're just going to get
together and go and maybe lookat the calendar and then we're
just going to go around the horn.
We're just going to go hearfrom everybody Talk about a
wasted opportunity.
So, unless there are specificthings that okay, this is what
we want sales to report on everyother Monday.
(14:00):
This is what we want marketingto report on.
This is what it is and it'sjust this little bit of data
that works, or you can split itup Next week is marketing, the
following week, the two weekslater, is sales, whatever it
might be, always start themeeting with your key results.
We teach it in Lead in 30, tkrs,team key results.
(14:23):
So we're starting with that.
Hey, you all, as we start themeeting, it's it's just like
it's just foundational, and soit's uh, here, here they are,
and uh, just, and that alwaysleads to comments.
Like you know, you guys werecrushing it on that first one.
Great job in the last few weekson this, that and the other.
You're're always it's the firstslide that's shared, it's
(14:46):
printed on the agenda the teamkey results.
We always, always, always,always, start with the team key
results or the organization'skey results in the meeting and
then typically the agenda willbe structured around it, because
one key result is going to besales, most likely, and
(15:07):
everybody affects that revenuenumber, but you're going to let
sales take it.
One is going to be aroundprofit or safety or quality or
something, and that's naturallykind of sits under one leader.
We all impact it, but thatdepartment kind of leads the
charge on it.
And then you've got another onethat might be people or
engagement or whatever it mightbe, or a customer or patient.
(15:29):
We've got somebody that kind ofsits under patient experience
or or, um, people management,whatever, and so they, they,
they kind of lead that one.
So you see how that'sstructured, okay.
Ok, then, if you are not doingquarterly offsites, why aren't
you?
Absolutely, and what wetypically see.
(15:51):
It depends on the size of yourteam, depends on the
organization.
Typically it's two days or aday and a half and you're not in
the office.
Why?
Because you get interrupted,people step out nonstop, people
get pulled out of the meeting.
You're not thinking creatively.
Go to the hotel and rent ameeting space, go to whatever
(16:15):
facility If you can be outdoorsand we're in a season right now
where most of us can't beoutdoors but be somewhere where
it's the windows.
The whole room is full ofwindows and I can see like get
my creative thinking, curb,appeal matters here.
Spend some money, go to a niceplace, maybe stay overnight,
(16:38):
whatever it might be.
Get people out of the officebuilding, get them to a place
that gets their right braincreative juices flowing.
Get them to a place where theycan sit down and and have a cup
of coffee or a or a bagel orwhatever, and they're sitting
around and they're kind of there.
There there's time built in toget to know each other and to
(17:01):
the agenda Isn't so frickingstructured that we can't have
some time coming in and out ofthe room Like you want this team
bonding, you want them justnaturally talking to each other,
you want to give them breaksand whatever Super important.
And then, if you do, some of youcan do it in a day, day and a
half, don't.
And these meetings that go from8 am to 5 pm are brutal.
(17:24):
You think you're gettingpeople's best up at 3 o'clock in
the afternoon.
They're fried.
No, we usually start at 9because we're going to give
people some time to get emailsdone or get some breakfast in
the morning, and then we're doneat 2 or 3.
Why?
Because you're not good after 2or 3 anyway, no one's paying
attention.
You're fried.
(17:45):
Good after two or three.
Anyway, no one's payingattention.
You're fried.
And so I've worked for bosses,I've worked at firms where
they're like yeah, we want to.
We're spending all this moneygetting people together.
We're going till five.
I'm like well, you're gettingnothing.
Like you, if you, we're gonnaall act like we're fully engaged
the last hour or two, but youreally get nothing.
So that that's.
That's my bias on that.
(18:05):
In being in as I wouldchallenge most of you to have
been in more of those meetingsthan I have at more
organizations, more companieswith more executive teams, I've
just I make my living doing that.
So I've seen it in organizationafter organization after
organization.
There is a difference on theteam where the leader gets his
(18:27):
or her team offsite every threemonths, does two days or does a
day and a half or whatever, anddoesn't have this fricking
structured, crazy agenda thatgoes nonstop.
We'll start at seven, we'll endat six.
Oh my gosh, I dread thesemeetings right.
So, also on the agenda, part ofit is strategic and part of it
(18:53):
is culture.
So I make my living, our firm.
We typically come in and run ahalf a day of those two days.
Every quarter we typically arerunning half a day or it might
be two hours, depending on howmuch movement's needed, how deep
in the work we are, and we'recoming in to talk about how the
team's working together.
So part of the offsitestructured on the what what
(19:16):
we're trying to get accomplished, it's strategy and part of it
is structured around how.
When I say, culture.
I'm not talking about you'replaying games.
That's not culture.
Okay, that's just fun, that'sjust building some bond or
whatever.
That's not what I'm talkingabout.
What I'm talking about is whereyou're exchanging feedback and
how you're showing up with oneanother.
(19:37):
We were talking about where youneed greater alignment, where
the organization is having somesilos.
We are talking about that.
We don't have enough clarity inthis area or whatever.
You're talking about the how.
These are meaningful,productive, intense
conversations in a how we worktogether.
You got it.
So part of it the majority ofthe meetings on the what, and
(19:59):
then part of it's on the how wework together, and you either
bring in a consulting firm oryou bring in somebody that knows
how to do that if somebody torun that and you got to have the
real conversations.
This is where you dive in.
You're talking about the realstuff and you're getting people
to be candid and right.
Otherwise it's a total waste oftime.
People are just telling youwhat they what, what they think
(20:19):
you want to hear.
That's what you're saying toeach other.
So the other thing I'd say aboutthat is in those strategic
offsites, do not do death byPowerPoint.
Okay, from eight to nine, we'regoing to have marketing present
their strategic update and then, from nine to 10, we're going
to get a quarterly businessreview from whatever team like
poke a razor in my eyelid.
Review from whatever team likepoke a razor in my eyelid, like
(20:44):
no that, because most of thoseare boring, and the way most of
the leaders, your managers andyou, the way most of you present
you've got all these slides anddata and you've lost me after
slide four, like totally tunedout.
The other thing I'm on mysoapbox here, the other thing
that matters is no freakinglaptops.
Are you kidding me?
You're seriously going tostructure the room in a U.
(21:07):
You're going to have everybodysitting at a laptop and you're
going to have marketing reportfor this hour and that business
unit report for that time andthis team report for that.
Everybody's on their laptop.
They are halfway listening, ifthat much.
They're responding to emails.
They're doing black Fridayshopping.
They're responding to text.
They are not.
(21:28):
They're halfway listening.
Why the crap did you pay to geteverybody together?
Get the laptops closed.
Old school people, notebook,ipad, whatever tablet you want
to be writing on, or a sheet ofpaper, and I prefer old school,
like no technology.
We're going to take breaks soyou can go in.
(21:49):
We're going to give you 30minutes every hour, every hour
and a half, every two hours.
We're going to take a 30 minutebreak.
That's when you go check youremail, that's when you go do
whatever.
That's when you make that call.
Otherwise you're in here,Technology's off.
Let the team know, I mean, ifthere might be there might be
(22:10):
occasionally, 25% of the time amajor fire that erupts with a
customer or somebody else andsomebody's got to step out.
But but some of you, you runyour meetings.
We, when we start working withclients, we'll see this and then
we'll give them feedback andthey'll stop doing it because we
push on it.
Some people are like, yeah, Igot to manage the clients.
Well, hello, do you have aclient fire breaking out
literally every 15 minutesBecause your sales dude's
(22:30):
walking out or on his phone, orshe is every 15 minutes?
I can't have that many firesand if you do, you need a new
sales manager or you need they.
That that sales manager needsstronger lieutenants because you
can't go through a two-hourmeeting without being
interrupted.
Like nobody's that important.
The president sits at a meetingfor whatever I mean.
Okay, you know what I mean.
So, um, that's quarterly offset.
(22:53):
Last thing I want to talk aboutis one-on-ones and you all,
frequent contact.
What I care about more, basedon what I've seen work in
organizations, I care about thestructured one-on-one that's
important, but I, what I caremore about is the spontaneous
phone call, the spontaneous text.
(23:14):
Some of you suck at this.
Some of you are really good atit.
This goes to kind of the.
This is right under visibility.
So, more than the one-on-one,the formal one, where we sit
down once a month and we reviewwhatever, I just want you
calling me, like twice a week.
I want you to, I want you, Iwant to hear your voice.
Just, no agenda, out of thecold.
Just call me.
Hey, jared, it's Russ.
(23:36):
How are you?
Hey, man, I just got off aplane, whatever.
You got five minutes,absolutely.
What's going on?
Oh, not much man, we're justdoing this.
Whatever?
Anything specific about whatyou're calling?
Nope, just checking in.
How are you, how are thingsgoing?
That's what management bywalking around sounds like.
Or if you're in the physicallocation which very few of you
(23:58):
are in the same physicallocation with everybody all the
time but if you are, that'sgoing and checking in with
somebody.
It's walking over hey Mike,how's it going?
Just want to check in with youfor a second.
I might even close the door fora minute, just spontaneously
close the door.
And I'm doing this two or threetimes a week.
I want to be close to my people.
I want to hear their mood.
(24:20):
I want to see their bodylanguage.
I want to be, I want to.
They're going to bring stuff upthree or four minutes into that
conversation.
They're going to go.
Actually, we were in this call,you know, I'm actually I'm glad
you're here because I want tobring this up with you and
that's where the stuff comes up.
You don't want it in a meetingthree weeks from now or two
(24:41):
weeks from now.
So it's the one-on-ones, thatinteraction for me, that's.
I care a lot more about the um,the, the, the frequency of that,
than the formality of it.
It's strategic offsites everyquarter and I didn't give you a
lot on.
I kind of talked to you aboutthe two different categories,
what you talk about, but wecould get more in another
episode if you wanted to, or youcould just direct message me if
you want, and, uh, and and, andI can answer any questions
(25:03):
you've got about.
Well, what does that agendalook like?
And then it is the every otherweek.
For some of you it's once amonth meeting with the
leadership team.
Visibility that all fits undervisibility, okay.
Visibility, accessibility,transparency, how we interact
with our team Okay, hope that'shelpful to you.
I hope that you're thinking ofsome tweaks that you can make.
(25:27):
Your impact on the people thatyou lead is huge.
You've got to be accessible tothem, you've got to be visible
to them, and how you do that iscritically important.
That's what's on my mind inthis episode of the Lead in 30
podcast.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
Share this episode with a colleague, your team or a
friend.
Tap on the share button andtext the link.
Thanks for listening to theLead in 30 podcast with Russ
Hill.
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The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
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Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.