Use weekly leadership meetings to set priorities and focus on goals
From promoting teamwork to identifying problems early, a weekly leadership meeting can improve the trajectory of your family business. The consistency and communication they foster can help your farm in its transition journey.
“A key success factor for families in succession transition is to have weekly scheduled operation meetings,” says Rena Striegel, president of Transition Point Business Advisors.
These meetings should last 60 to 90 minutes and be on the same day and time each week, she says. Make participation mandatory.
“Your team should schedule around this meeting if you want to ensure success,” she says. “You can only miss the meeting if you are on vacation or in the hospital.”
Sample Agenda for a Farm Weekly Leadership Meeting
One good thing (5 min.): Each member shares one good thing that has happened in the past week. It can be personal or professional. This will put everyone in a positive mindset. It also promotes communication.
Review your scorecard (5 min.): If your operation does not have a scorecard, consider building one. This allows your leaders to review 10 to 15 key performance metrics each week. Scorecards allow you to see a snapshot of your farm and to predict trends (positive or negative).
Review progress on your strategic priorities for the quarter (5 min.): Your strategic priorities are found in your business plan and should be reviewed every week to ensure leaders are being accountable to achieve results. Remember — what gets measured gets done.
Share highlights (5 min.): Share any relevant information regarding clients, vendors or employees. This will keep everyone on the same page and allow for discussion if action is required.
Weekly schedule (5 min.): Identify priorities for the week and who will be accountable for completing them. If a larger discussion is required, move it to the issues section of the agenda.
Issues to discuss (1 hr.): List and prioritize the issues to discuss. If you do not get through all the issues, determine if it can be moved to next week or needs a separate meeting. Discuss each issue and create action items. This helps you move barriers out of the way. The process also teaches successors to work together.
Recap (who is accountable for what action items) (5 min.): Quickly review the action items from the issues discussion. Make sure you assign one person to each action item. Assigning one person to each item will make accountability easer to monitor.
Adjourn
