Creating a Rhythm of Inspection

The Passport Growth Leadership team will be holding its Quarterly Business Review this week. It is our time to look back at what we accomplished and where we had challenges. It is also our time to look forward as to what we need to do and where we can make changes to enable success.?

The Passport Growth team started the year with an overarching theme of #Intentionality. We committed ourselves to a consistent mental state directed to consistent improvement and achievement. I talked about the WHY of intentionality in an earlier post HERE. A part of this process is the act of being Intentional in how we manage and measure ourselves on a regular basis.

A key inspection rhythm our Growth leadership team has incorporated is the Quarterly Business Review. I expect many organizations have a similar process or routine. I also suspect in many organizations it is done simply because it has always been done. We have been intentional over the past 2 years to actively choose to invest in this engagement.?

We structure our QBR in the following manner:

• Leadership Look Back, Look Forward sessions & Strategy Alignment: These are sessions by individual group leaders to discuss successes and lessons learned from the prior quarter. It also focuses on what is upcoming. These sessions also serve to foster candid discussions across the leadership team to ensure alignment in initiatives.
• Seller Territory and Forecast Review: This is an all day session where sellers come prepared to speak to the following: Performance to Quota, Next Quarter Forecast, and 2Q Pipeline. We are intentional about inviting cross org leadership to these sessions to create transparency across the business.
• Product and Operations Strategy Alignment: We rotate between product and operational leaders to engage with our Growth Leadership team on a quarterly basis. This is a focused, unfiltered discussion on strategy and updates. It plays a meaningful role in making sure our teams are connected to what the roadmap is for the company,

What #BestPractices does this community find works for a QBR?

As a leadership team, we challenge ourselves each quarter to actively choose to hold this event. To ensure we get the most out of this time, we architect around Four key themes: Preparation, Purpose, Outcomes, and Discussion & Alignment.

Preparation: Whether public or private, the natural cadence for sales teams is a 90 day cycle. It has been my experience that it is incredibly important to reinforce this rhythm - regardless of company type or structure - to best maximize consistent results for teams. This means that the planning and preparation for an effective QBR begins 45 days prior to quarter close. This is the point the leadership team should begin discussing the overall agenda for the QBR and specific topics that need focus.

As the team heads into the final 30 days of a quarter, the leadership team should have an initial draft QBR agenda that can be circulated for awareness across the business. This is especially important if you plan to incorporate other business leaders or groups into your session. It has been my experience that Q2 and Q4 QBRs, at a minimum, should include leaders outside of sales & marketing to speak to initiatives, investments, and alignments. To make these effective, it is important to give as much runway as possible and provide 30 day awareness should ensure these leaders ability to prepare.

It is also important that the Preparation align with a consistent sales pipeline and forecasting rhythm. Sales teams should be using the final two weeks of each quarter to update their rolling four quarter pipeline and refining the next quarter forecast. These updates should feed into the sales leaders content for the QBR as well as provide guidance to the business. It is imperative these rhythms align so the leadership can speak to Outcomes and opportunity.

Purpose: Leadership should be intentional about identifying the #Purpose for each QBR. There are consistent items that need to be addressed in each QBR - Sales Performance (team and individual), Progress to Goals, and key initiatives update. That being said, every 90 days is going to bring something unique that needs to be addressed by leadership. It is important that leadership understands and sets the Purpose for each to reflect what is most important to be addressed or solved.

Discussion & Alignment: It has been my experience that this is one the most important aspects of an effective QBR. It is easy to fall into a rhythm whereby each group or leader “presents out” their content. Agendas become so full that you move from topic to topic with little time for discussion, debate or alignment.

The difference maker for events like this to flip it from “just another forgettable meeting” to positively impacting the performance and development of teams is providing space for real discussion and alignment.

This expectation has to be set up front. It is the responsibility of the senior executive to ensure these discussions happen!

Just as important is getting to alignment. The leadership team must feel comfortable challenging each other and challenging the status quo. By the end, however, the leadership team must reach alignment to ensure execution. This is the value of 90-day cycles as is it gives leaders and teams time to implement, execute, and assess. The QBR provides a great opportunity for leadership to truly assess performance and make changes - as long as leadership is intentional about making space for these discussions and decisions.

Business and strategies do not stay static in today’s business environment. If you do not take advantage of intentional events to challenge and ensure alignment then you are setting your teams up for failure.

What are effective ways you created direct discussions and alignment across your leadership teams?

Community: Effective teams are ones that have a strong sense of #Community with each other. High growth sales & marketing teams face unique challenges every day. To overcome these challenges quickly and avoid conflict, teams must establish Trust. Trust is not given but earned which happens across shared experiences, shared accountability, and shared transparency. This does not occur overnight but leadership should be intentional about creating opportunities for the community. We do this each QBR by hosting a leadership dinner on one night and collective team happy hour on another night.

It would be great to hear from this community what you have found to be successful in creating community across your leadership teams?

An overarching goal for every sales organization should be to maximize time in front of clients and prospects. Therefore every meeting or activity that takes away from client time needs to be measured in terms of impact. A productive QBR is an important facet of a well run sales and marketing organization. A QBR that is structured around Preparation, Purpose, Discussion & Alignment, and Community will help ensure you maximize your time.