The Monthly Leadership Meeting

In many com­pa­nies, there’s often a gap between their high­ly func­tion­ing quar­ter­ly plan­ning and the week­ly meet­ings. So, let’s talk about a spe­cif­ic struc­ture for the Month­ly Lead­er­ship Meet­ing. A half to full-day oppor­tu­ni­ty to do a deep­er dive into impor­tant tac­ti­cal or strate­gic dis­cus­sions, that you don’t get to in week­ly meet­ings or in over­loaded quar­ter­ly meetings.

1. Cal­i­brate and catch up

We often for­get about what’s going on and get lost in the prob­lems of the day, so the month­ly lead­er­ship meet­ing forces you out of that day-to-day to get back on track.

It’s a chance to get sup­port and insights, and then recal­i­brate. In order to achieve what you need to by the end of the quarter.

Prop­er­ly done, these meet­ings keep you in touch with what’s real­ly going on in the busi­ness and are a check-in to see if you are on track with your quar­ter­ly, com­pa­ny-lev­el goals.

2. Deep finan­cial review

A line-by-line, grind-through of the income state­ment, the bal­ance sheet, and the cash flow. Ask a lot of ques­tions to fig­ure out what to do in order to per­form bet­ter next month. There should be a notable num­ber of action items after this review.

• What’s work­ing, what’s not working?
• What are you going to do dif­fer­ent­ly going forward?
• Who is going to do what by when?

3. Depart­ment-lev­el review

Peo­ple in depart­ments often run on their own, so this is where every­one comes back togeth­er to give updates, and to keep things in sync between depart­ments. This ben­e­fits the CEO and exec­u­tives, and cre­ates peer pres­sure to do well. This clos­es any gaps between what peo­ple are actu­al­ly doing ver­sus their commitments.

Depend­ing on the size of the busi­ness, you may invite three to six peo­ple from each depart­ment to join you for a spe­cif­ic time, to report on how they are doing with their pri­or­i­ties, answer ques­tions and make decisions.

4. Cus­tomer & employ­ee feed­back review

Zoom out to look at what’s real­ly going on with key stakeholders:

• What are cus­tomers say­ing that’s good? What’s not good?
• What are you hear­ing from employees?
• What might you need to tweak in your plans right now?

Qual­i­ta­tive and quan­ti­ta­tive data is need­ed to be in tune with the envi­ron­ment, inter­nal­ly and exter­nal­ly. For exam­ple, a net pro­mot­er score (quan­ti­ta­tive) and 4 Ques­tions for cus­tomers (qual­i­ta­tive) for one-on-one feedback.

5. Col­lec­tive intelligence

Ded­i­cate two to six hours of the meet­ing to tap into the col­lec­tive brain­pow­er in the room, to push a project for­ward, solve a prob­lem, make a deci­sion, or get resources and support.

• Ask a team mem­ber to make a presentation.
• Dig into projects that you’re work­ing on or need to fig­ure out.
• Brain­storm stuck points, or what­ev­er is need­ed to do to make a project successful.
• Get realigned.

One client in India flew 40 peo­ple in from across the coun­try for full-day month­ly meet­ings to tap into col­lec­tive intel­li­gence. It’s a time when mid­dle man­agers get to grow and devel­op, to work with direc­tors and exec­u­tives, to under­stand what’s going on, to see dif­fer­ent things and work with peers on projects.

The Chal­lenge

• What can you do to either start or notably enhance the month­ly meet­ing with your key people?

Want to hear more? Lis­ten to Episode 92 of The Growth Whisperers.

And for more tips on great meetings:

Blog: 12 Tips for Bet­ter Busi­ness Meetings

Blog: Team Meet­ings, Debates and the Pow­er of Bowl­ing Balls

Episode 93: The Week­ly Lead­er­ship Team Meeting

Pod­cast: How to Lever­age Col­lec­tive Intelligence

Lawrence & Co’s work focus­es on sus­tain­able and enhanced growth for you and your busi­ness. Our diverse and expe­ri­enced group of advi­sors can help your lead­ers and exec­u­tive teams stay com­pet­i­tive through the use of var­i­ous learn­ing tools includ­ing work­shops, webi­na­rs, exec­u­tive retreats, or one-to-one coaching.

We help high-achiev­ing lead­ers to have it all – a great busi­ness and a reward­ing life. Con­tact us for sim­ple and impact­ful advice. No BS. No fluff.