Structure: Build Muscle on Strong Bones – Part 3

I can barely sit still, so I don’t love meetings. But I do love structure.

Meetings are strong structures that support organizational muscle. For the next few blog posts, I’ll offer the non-negotiable meeting structures that are essential to our success. See if any of them stick for you.

All Company Meeting. It’s the third Thursday of the month at 4:00 pm. That means it’s a company meeting – just once a month! Over one hundred twenty people get on a Zoom call at four o’clock. Zoom rules apply – the camera is on, and people are not at a job site or moving vehicle. We prefer people to be at home; we encourage them to drive home, and we pay them for that trip. We want them to be comfortable because we spend the next hour having a structured meeting, and I want them to be engaged. We expect that people will arrive on time and abide by Zoom rules. (If they can’t, we expect them to explain why.) Just about everybody does show up to our meetings; it is part of our culture.

What Happens in this Meeting?

1. Our safety manager, Hernan, kicks things off with a safety session.
2. Next, Jon will discuss financials, year-to-date profits, and new hires.
3. Following the financials, I talk about strategy plans, training programs, and things that are a little more in the thought-bubble stage.
4. Finally, I float any new ideas for the business to the group. Jon and I are always transparent about everything. Done.

Financial Meeting. Every Monday at 7:30 am, the Management Team holds a quick financial meeting. Steve, the CFO, provides all the details of our balances, accounts receivable, accounts payable, and where all the money went from the week before.

Sales Meeting. We hold a sales meeting each Monday afternoon with our seven salespeople on Zoom. The COO jumps off after we do a review of all the receivables. Salespeople then help with follow-up and collecting any monies that are still due. Next, each salesperson reviews the week and discusses the various customers they plan to see. The salesperson finishes up by talking about staging their projects and the organization of all the details for the work that they have pending – things like colors, firm start dates, schedule, etc.

More on meetings in the next post. Don’t get overwhelmed, just pick the one that is most important to your organization and get started.

See you Monday. Build muscle and structure.