Toolbox Talk, Morning Sit Down, Daily Primer, Morning Huddle… call it what you will, but a well-managed morning meeting can create big shifts in your team. Here are some simple rituals and traditions we’ve built into our morning catch up to help our team launch into their day:

1. Creating a platform for shared moments

Use the morning catch up to create a tradition of information sharing. For example, in the Directors of the Extraordinary office, we start the day with a song of the day before our daily huddle that includes two questions:

What are you grateful for today?

and

What is something you learnt?

The team are encouraged to share anything that is going on for them that is impacting them in a positive way – it might be work related – meeting a new client, finishing a big task, something they’re excited to learn, or something personal. The point of these two simple questions is to facilitate a platform for shared moments that create connection, accountability, joy and insight. Creating simple traditions like this is a great way to connect your team – to the day ahead, and to each other.

2. Starting with purpose, to finish with satisfaction

In many large businesses, it’s easy for employees to fall into the rut of thinking their work doesn’t matter. In reality, everyone plays an important role in the collective mission of solving challenges for the business, and in many cases, clients. A simple daily reminder, like reviewing tasks or progress against the bigger mission and highlighting the value of individual ideas and input can help everyone reconnect with the team purpose, and allow for early mitigation of blockages within the work flow.

At Directors of the Extraordinary, we use ‘3 before 3’, sharing the three most important things that we will get done that day (before 3pm) that will have the biggest impact on our shared mission and purpose.

Get creative, especially when the mission seems dry. Would a visual mission map work for your team? We love helping teams get excited about their purpose, so get in touch for a team building experience to bring the whole team together.

3. Remembering you’re leading people, not robots

Finally, it’s important to remember you’re leading a team of humans – people with their own lives, hobbies, personalities and preferences. So pay attention, be flexible and try new things to create a system that works for your team.

For example, you may find some people bounding into the office at the crack of dawn, full of good ideas and bright energy. Others may crawl in with seconds to spare before the official ‘start time’ – or even mid-morning; but end up staying far later as their energy and brainpower kicks into high gear later in the day.

If that looks like your team, perhaps hosting a 7am huddle chat every morning isn’t the best use of everyone’s time. Instead, what about hosting that same session just before lunch, while the early birds and night owls are both humming along at their peak?

Or perhaps integrating an asynchronous communication tool, like Yammer or Slack, so teams can comment on tasks and provide updates at a time that suits them, without interrupting colleagues who may have just hit their productivity peak. We use Slack to manage all of our projects, and as a Covid pivot, even do our Huddle on a dedicated Slack channel. This allows the team to contribute as they log on as they are working in a super flexible manner, across multiple priorities to keep things moving – even working weekends.

Be flexible in your approach and open to experimentation to find the right approach for your team.