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Setting your communication rhythms for a successful year

AUTHOR
Jacqui Gage-Brown

DATE
31 January, 2024

CATEGORY
Blog & Resources

As we head back to work after an amazing New Zealand summer, it’s time to talk about setting the stage for success with clear communication rhythms.

With a fresh diary on the desk and a chance to review the digital diary too, the start of the year is the perfect time to lock in your meeting schedule.

Inspired by the Gravitas Impact monograph “The 7 Attributes of Agile Growth,” let’s explore how to harness the Execution Attribute and set a rhythm that will build you for success. 

The power of communication rythms

Communication rhythms sum up how often you meet with your team to work on execution. With your strategy set for the year, it’s about ensuring everyone’s in sync. Clear, measurable quarterly priorities and progress toward these can be achieved through a well-structured meeting cadence. Let’s see how these come together to enable a successful year. 

Establishing your non-negotiable meetings

The start of the year is a great time to work through your diary and commit to the essential meetings. It’s your chance to map out the year. These are your non-negotiables: the daily huddles to catch the wave of daily operations, the weekly leadership meetings to steer the ship, monthly financial reviews to check your bearings, and quarterly and annual planning to navigate the journey ahead.

The leadership teams that we work with at Two Tides understand the importance of setting these rhythms. They ensure everyone is heading in the same direction – toward your goals.

Advancing communication rhythms

Once established, and these communication rhythms are embedded within your organisation, you may look to add a few more meetings to your calendar. With our clients, it is common to see a combination of these advanced meetings being held too:

  1. Weekly or fortnightly one-on-ones for a personal check-in
  2. Monthly team-based KPI review
  3. Quarterly plan launch session, keeping everyone up to date with the plan for the quarter
  4. Pre-annual planning session, often bringing in the A-players

Making meetings meaningful

Look, people’s time is precious, and nobody wants a meeting when they could be doing other productive things. Each meeting should leave us with a clearer map – who’s doing what, what we need to tackle, and when. It’s about action, and who’s going to deliver what.  

And it all ties back to our one-page business strategy, ensuring we’re not just drifting from one emergency to the next, but to ensure we’re working on and towards our strategy.

Keep in mind, not all meetings are created equal. Lucid Meetings suggests meeting weekly or fortnightly for the important but not urgent matters, daily for the urgent matters, and for the rest? Well, a quick message on Teams or Slack might just do the trick.

Establishing communication rhythms for success

Aligning with your One-Page Business Strategy

Remember, when we have a destination set it’s easier to get there with a map. Our one-page business strategy provides just that. It’s our destination, and our communication rhythm then becomes Siri guiding us there with useful directions (generally, unless Siri takes you off the main road).

It means the whole team knows where we are going, what we need to do to get there, and what towns (or people) we may bypass on the way.

The impact on culture and goal achievement

Sticking to your meeting rhythm is like sticking to the map – it creates a better journey for all, unifying, strengthening, and propelling you towards your destination. It’s about creating a cadence that keeps everyone in step and focused on the prize.

As we charge into 2024, ask yourself, are your meetings charted for the year? Have you allocated time to prepare, to ensure you’re not just turning up, but ready to contribute?

Not sure where to start? Contact Two Tides, and let’s map out your communication rhythms to help you achieve your business strategy.

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