Mark Cuban on Weekly Reports

I was for­tu­nate to spend an hour with Dal­las Maverick’s own­er and Shark Tank star Mark Cuban, before a Maverick’s game in the Amer­i­can Air­lines Center.

From the many inter­est­ing things he talked about, my ears perked up when some­one asked him how he stays on top of all the com­pa­nies he’s invest­ed in: 70 alone on Shark Tank, and anoth­er 75 he’s no longer as active in – plus all his direct reports in the Mavericks.

Week­ly reports: One Week at a Time

“It’s very easy,” he answered. ​“Every­body sends me a week­ly report. It needs to be week­ly, and you need to tell me the bad news first. If you don’t tell me the bad news, you’re fired.”

He said he needs to know where the risks are — where to pay atten­tion — and where to help out.

Andrew Grove, the founder of Intel, also talks about the pow­er of week­ly reports in his book High Out­put Management.

I used to feel bad about ask­ing peo­ple for week­ly reports because I read them very quick­ly — and I know they took a lot of ener­gy to write. Now I get it.

The report ben­e­fits the writer most: to orga­nize their thoughts, to con­tem­plate their week, and to think about how they can be bet­ter next week. Week­ly reports are the ulti­mate self-man­age­ment tool — and a great moti­va­tor because peo­ple want to make sure they’ve made progress.

And the read­er gets per­spec­tive on where the per­son is at, and to see how they can help.

Test out the chal­lenge below, and learn more about account­abil­i­ty here.