Evan's Aetiology - v3.15

Quick Wins: The Power of Daily Huddles for Remote Teams

Geoff is a plasterer. He came to me because he was deep in debt. After running the ruler over his books, I realised he’d overpaid his tax—to the tune of $200,000.

I only had a narrow window to lodge amended tax returns. Because I always keep some time up my sleeve to deal with emergencies, this didn’t present a problem. After receiving his refund, Geoff asked me to help him rebuild his business.

Over the years, he’s built a reputation for high quality work, so he’s very much in demand. On paper, he should be knocking it out of the park, but his business wasn’t meeting its full potential.

So Geoff and I sat down to figure out what was going wrong. As always, I insist on some hard data before making any decisions. After applying Strategy to Cash?, here’s what I learned.

Geoff employs eight tradies, divided into three teams. Each man should be plastering 10 square metres per day, but they were only averaging 6.5 square metres.

To complicate matters, the guys don’t spend all their time plastering. Each team spends four days on a typical job. Two days to prep, one day to spread the mud on the walls, and one day to finish and clean up.

So each man is working flat out on day three, aiming for 40 or 50 square metres by the time he downs the trowel.

I asked Geoff to talk through the problems his men encounter. As I suspected, poor coordination had hamstrung his team. Which means Geoff and his staff had a communication problem.

My solution? A quick tactical meeting at 7.10 am each morning, before the men kicked off for the day.

I’ve written before about the value of daily meetings. My last example was a mechanical workshop, where all the staff worked in the same building. But Geoff’s teams are spread across Adelaide. How to coordinate the meeting?

Simple. Download the free Microsoft Teams app for iPhones or Androids, and every man has a meeting in his pocket.

Even so, daily tacticals don’t just happen. You have to organise them. That means more than just sending all your team members a calendar invite. You also need everyone to turn up. Yes, everyone. No one’s important enough to skip the meeting, because they already know it all. In fact, if they genuinely do know everything (as opposed to believing they know much more than they actually do), they’re indispensable—because they’ll keep their colleagues in the loop. Who knows—they may even learn something from their teammates!

Geoff’s guys weren’t used to these regular 7.10 meetings. First time around, maybe half logged on. To set the tone, Geoff and I were ready and waiting for them. After the meeting, Geoff followed up with the no-shows, and impressed upon them the need to join in the next day.

What did we discuss at these meetings? What each team had on for the day, and what they needed to complete their tasks efficiently. Short and sweet, each meeting was over in less than fifteen minutes. Some days, we wrapped them up in eight minutes.

But something was troubling me. The 7.10 start meant the guys had ten minutes to kill before the meeting kicked off. If you’ve read my book Numbers That Matter, you’ll know I’m big into efficiency. Eighty minutes of collective down time could be put to better use. Could we bring the meeting forward to 7.00 am?

The guys gave me the big thumbs down. As Geoff explained it, they needed to set up, complete a Health and Safety Assessment, and check that they had all the materials and tools they needed for the day.

‘How long does that take?’ I asked.

‘Two or three guys, five minutes each,’ Geoff replied.

So we agreed on a 7.05 am start. The guys were on board with that.

Next time, we’ll look at some of the quick wins we scored with our daily tacticals!

? Evan Bulmer

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