The New Leader’s Journal: Quarterly meeting cadence

We’ve figured out our meeting cadence:

Weekly milestone updates (1 hour each – people live or by phone)

Monthly deep dive into one topic (1/2 day – people in sessions that are appropriate for them)

Quarterly business reviews (full day, all live).  Additionally, each quarter we’ll work one of four big things:

Q4 operating plans

Q1 talent review

Q2 strategic plan

Q3 succession planning

Reflections

Now that we’ve got our five building blocks in place (Imperative – Milestones – Early Wins – Role Sort – Communication), we need to put in place our approach to managing the business over time.  These get at longer term strategic, operational, and organizational processes and build in check points for us to assess what’s going on in the world around us so we can adjust on a continual basis.

Boss Jack particularly liked the quarterly cadence and will likely flow some of that into his team processes as well.  This is a good example of guiding others by strengthening my circle of influence instead of working on my circle of concern (thank you Stephen Covey).  This probably would not have worked so well if I’d proposed changing Jack’s team.  Instead I changed the marketing team and let Jack see the idea.


The New Leader’s Journal is a fictional exercise illustrating the prescriptions and tools in the 3rd edition of The New Leader’s 100-Day Action PlanClick here to request an executive summary of the book.  Click here to order a copy.

Read More Articles

Clear road
What To Do When Others Don’t Do What They Said They Would Do

One of the most predictable realities is that not everyone does what they said they are going to do - and even fewer do it when they said they would…

Read Article
Board meeting with the CEO
Why the Best CEOs Start Board Meetings With One Simple Sentence

Most board meetings don’t fail because of bad data. They fail because of unclear expectations—especially about how directors should feel when they leave the room. Too often, management teams present…

Read Article
White-water rafting team navigating strong river rapids with teamwork and coordination.
Recalibrating Your Own BRAVE Leadership in Turbulent Times

Leadership is most effective when it turns other‑focused intent into disciplined, everyday action in an ever-changing world. Take this moment to recalibrate how you are leading to sharpen both your…

Read Article
Team meeting
The Hierarchy of High Performance: Defining Ways of Working by Level

Use this approach to make your ways of working more disciplined, consistent, and effective by level, remit and choices, and systems and tools: Level, Remit and Choices:  Board – governance…

Read Article
Team work
How to Build Tactical Capacity: Moving from Individual to Team Proactivity

The secret sauce in tactical capacity is proactivity as a team because it is not about a few heroic individuals taking initiative; it is about a team that reliably sees…

Read Article
Leading Through the Next AI Wave By Turning Uncertainty Into Innovation
Leading Through the Next AI Wave By Turning Uncertainty Into Innovation

When it comes to Artificial Intelligence, many leaders are dealing with the same uneasy question: Where’s the return on all this AI investment? According to Dr. Mehdi Nourbakhsh, CEO of…

Read Article