Tl;dr – ★★★☆☆
There’s some solid advice wrapped up in this book – but there’s also lots of fluff.
Essentially, Thean proposes three types of “rhythms” to accelerate growth — think, plan, and do.
Thean argues that a “commitment to cadence” using these rhythms leads to growth for companies.
Think Rhythm
A rhythm of strategic thinking to keep their teams focused, working on the future of their business.
Practical recommendations
- Two day annual and quarterly sessions (one day for thinking, one for planning)
- Weekly talk and think time
- Develop winning moves (that drive revenue growth) and values
- Winning moves (read OKRs) should be tracked on a tracker
Plan Rhythm
A rhythm of execution planning to choose the right priorities and get their departments and divisions aligned.
- “Just because a company is growing fast and its people are passionate does not mean that those people will magically understand what they are supposed to do to keep the company on course.”
- “Strategic thinking is about figuring out what you should do. Execution planning is about figuring out how to get it done.”
Practical recommendations
- “A great plan should allow every person in your company to tell your story with clarity. Clarity in communication is critical to driving your execution plan forward.”
- Begin with the end in mind
- Create a great agenda
- Come prepared
- Be effective versus efficient
- Use a parking lot (log tangents for later)
- Cut it off when the team is tired
- Every quarter is a 13-week race
- “A great annual plan needs to describe how you will achieve goals and targets logically as well as inspire the hearts of the team. People in your company must connect with it both logically and emotionally.”
- “Agree that what does not get planned does not get done.”
- Develop “leading indicators” that can give you insight into what is about to happen (they are predictive).
- Identify the problem
- Clarify the desired result
- Dig deeper with questions
- Drive results
- Share your KPIs
- Measure what you want to move, instead of measuring everything that moves
- Identify a critical number to measure your progress for each quarter and each year
- Red-yellow-green (some sort of scale to allow tracking)
Do Rhythm
A rhythm of executing the plan and making effective and timely adjustments every week.
Practical recommendations
Three proposed meetings to “do the work and make decisions”
- Meeting with Myself — 30m each week reviewing the week that just ended and planning priorities for the week to come
- Weekly Adjustment Meeting — team meeting to realign and focus on achieving the plan for the quarter
- Status your dashboards (V2MOMS) before weekly meetings (don’t waste time discussing status, and spend the meeting working on solutions)
- Everyone should leave the meeting completely understanding what they’re going to do in the coming week – and how that work contributes to the plan for the quarter
- Agenda
- Start with round of good news
- Focus on the company’s plan
- Commit to your personal plan for the week
- Work on solutions — dashboards depersonalize problems so that you can effectively discuss, debate, and decide
- Commit to your tasks
- Adjustment Meetings to solve specific problems — meet with the right team members to focus and solve specific issues that are “blocked”
Other notes:
- Allow space to fail, provide a “get out of jail free” card
- Determine a “Main Thing”