Not Doing This is Crazy: How to Run a Daily Huddle
One important aspect of effective leadership is to make certain you and your people are focusing on key priorities each day. You can’t do that unless you are communicating with your team and hearing from them regularly.
One solution? A daily huddle.
Years after John D. Rockefeller used the tactic of the daily huddle to build Standard Oil into one of the largest companies ever, Verne Harnish promoted the concept of “daily huddles” in his 2002 book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.
You can use daily huddles in your business to build rapport, increase communication, and improve performance.
The Rockefeller Habit of a Daily Huddle adopted by Steve Jobs and Jony Ive
According to Harnish, John D. Rockefeller would walk to work every morning and walk home every night with his brother and the three other guys who started the company. During those daily walks, they would discuss what was going on in the business and make almost all of the important business decisions. When Rockefeller moved Standard Oil to New York City in 1885, he continued this daily practice even though the people in his inner circle changed.
At some point, Rockefeller morphed his daily huddle from a walk and talk into a daily luncheon where he would sit, eat, and talk with the key leaders of Standard Oil. As the company grew, the meetings grew to include the nine directors of the company.
Almost a century later, Steve Jobs utilized the same tactic in daily meetings with Apple’s design chief, Jony Ive. They would have lunch together most days, and spent their afternoons in “the sanctuary of the design studio”. Just about every day, Jobs would ask Ive, “What have you said ‘no’ to today?” The question served as a focusing exercise for Ive (as many huddles do). Jobs understood design was critical to Apple’s success and wanted Ives to spend his valuable time on the most important priorities.
Asking that question every day provided clarity to both Jobs and Ives.
Guidelines for a Daily Huddle: Every Company Can Have Them
Fortunately, you don’t have to be Standard Oil or Apple to implement and benefit from daily huddles.
In fact, daily huddles are at the heart of the SCRUM and Agile methodologies and have become a best practice in the small business community. Patrick Lencioni says, “If you’re a small organization, not doing this is crazy. When you’re small, you can develop connections among staff that make you more nimble. Daily check-ins help you build a culture of unity and sustain it as you grow.”
Short, daily meetings will keep you and your team focused on the same strategic goals, answer pressing questions, and maintain accountability.
Here are some guidelines for your daily huddle:
Start on time.
No more than 15 minutes.
Problem solving is forbidden - information only.
End on time.
Beyond that, you can customize your daily huddles in an endless number of ways. Some companies meet the first thing in the morning, others might hold their huddle right before lunch. Some leaders decide to hold the meeting at a specific time, like 8:43am, so it’s unique and memorable. Some huddles just include the senior staff, while others include the entire company. Some follow the same agenda every time, and still others make it up on the fly.
Regardless of how daily huddles are structured, they are an essential tool for CEOs at rapidly growing companies who are trying to maintain an entrepreneurial culture.
What should be the focus of a Daily Huddle?
A daily huddle is not the time for criticism, strategy, or stories from your vacation. It’s a time to communicate and get on the same page.
It’s also an exercise that should allow you to lose the “long leash”, stay close to your direct reports, and have them do the same with their people.
The general focus of daily huddles should be three-fold:
Priorities: What are we doing for the next 24 hours? What’s our daily focus? What’s the most important thing to get done today?
Measurement: What KPIs are we measuring? What are the numbers? How are we doing?
Remove roadblocks: What is holding us back? Where are we stuck?
Examples of Daily Huddles
Years ago, Inc. Magazine’s Leigh Buchanan wrote an article titled, “The Art of the Huddle - How to run a prompt, productive, and painless morning meeting.” In it, she provided 5 excellent examples of daily huddles. I have summarized them for you below.
I like the article because it gives you 5 brief examples of how to hold a quick morning meeting. It’s great to learn how some other companies are doing their huddles so you can create your own format that best serves your company culture. In brief, the 5 are:
The team builder - The objective is to improve communication. Participants review their day’s to-do lists together. The meetings also help identify non-communicators to weed them out.
The coordinator - The objective is to establish priorities and coordinate efforts. Participants meet at 11:45 a.m. for 15 minutes. It’s easy to limit the time because everyone is hungry.
The efficiency expert - Everyone in the office (20-40 people) share their top priority for the day in 8-15 seconds. They start at 8:43 a.m. to reinforce the importance of each minute.
The motivator - Starts with good news about the company or an individual, and ends with a cheer for the contributions of one employee. Also, the leader announces 3 critical numbers and a dept. head reviews their group activities.
The strategic planner - In 30-60 seconds each manager explains what they are doing that day to advance the quarterly and yearly company goals, what progress they made the previous day, and what roadblocks they are encountering.
I hope you enjoyed this piece on daily huddles. Have any questions or comments? Leave them in the comments section below or contact us anytime, we’d love to hear from you.
