Iâll put some relevant excerpts from the earlier, free ebook version in a pair of comments. (And if youâre wondering about any other specifics, you could also use the search feature in that.) Also note that I donât necessarily agree that these are good ideas, or good ideas for all orgsâthe âhandful of concrete ideasâ section is things I thought it may be worth doing, and that I should note down so I can think about them later.
Excerpts on office hours
This accountability, coaching and transparency needs to happen in both directions (from CEO to the company, and from the company to the CEO) at every level (company, department, team and individual).
This is best achieved through a regular series of meetings:
One-on-One
Team
Company-wide (All Hands)
Office hours
Company-wide social event
Quarterly planning offsite
Each manager should plan to devote a full day each week to internal meetings. The weekly team meeting will be the longest (up to three hours in the beginning, until teams learn the habit of writing down all input prior to the meeting, then it can get down to 30 minutes). The weekly one-on-one meetings and office hours will consume the remainder of the day. This timing determines how many team members a single manager can effectively oversee. If one of your managers canât fit all the necessary meetings into a single day, sheâs got too many people reporting directly to her, and you need to re-organize, or she needs to run more efficient meetings.
The overheadâtwenty percent of the standard work weekâcan feel tremendous to a startup CEO who is accustomed to the organic information flow of a small group working together in the same room. But without this one-day-per-week investment, a larger team will never fully know what to do, nor will the CEO get the needed feedback on her performance or the companyâs performance.
[...]
On your day set aside for meetings, schedule One-On-One meetings prior to the team meeting. Schedule them back-to-back, and allot twenty-five to fifty minutes for each one. If there is a serious issue to discuss, such as serious job dissatisfaction, then use your Open Office Hour (see below) later that day to fully address the issue.
[...]
Open Office Hour
Each manager should set aside one hour each week for an open office hour, during which anyone can come introduce an issue. This ensures that all employees feel that they can be heard, but limits the amount of time required to a predictable level for the manager.
Iâll put some relevant excerpts from the earlier, free ebook version in a pair of comments. (And if youâre wondering about any other specifics, you could also use the search feature in that.) Also note that I donât necessarily agree that these are good ideas, or good ideas for all orgsâthe âhandful of concrete ideasâ section is things I thought it may be worth doing, and that I should note down so I can think about them later.
Excerpts on office hours
thanks!